Taiwan's Interest in Space with A Domestic Weather Satellite

President Tsai Ing-wen said that Taiwan's first home-grown weather satellite demonstrates the country's commitment to growing its space sector. 

She praised the program as a step toward taking the island to space.

Although Taiwan has operated a FORMOSAT satellite program since the 1990s, tension with China has given the government further incentives.

In case China attacks and cuts off sea cables or other kinds of connectivity, the country has come up with plans to employ satellites in medium- and low-earth orbit for internet services

Tsai added that more than 80% of the Triton weather satellite's components were created and made in Taiwan.

It will carry Taiwan's own global navigation satellite system while it was being sent off to French Guiana, where it will be launched in September.

Taiwan flags space ambition with a domestically developed weather satellite

She referred to it by its Chinese name at the Taiwan Space Agency in the northern city of Hsinchu, which is home to Taiwan's leading semiconductor industry, and declared that "The Wind-Hunter Satellite is born-and-bred made in Taiwan."

"The Wind-Hunter Satellite proves that with the benefits of Taiwan's semiconductor and precision manufacturing, it can enter the global space industry," Tsai said.

According to the Taiwan Space Agency, Triton will be launched into a spherical low-Earth orbit at a height of between 550-650 kilometers.

To better predict the route of typhoons and heavy rain, both of which subtropical Taiwan commonly experiences, it is intended to gather data on sea surface winds that will be integrated with ground radar wind field data.

The satellite will be launched using a Vega C rideshare mission from Arianespace. 

A joint venture between Airbus and Safran owns the majority of Arianespace, a competitor of Elon Musk's SpaceX.

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