Turkey launches its satellite into space

ALBAWABA - Turkey launched its satellite, IMECE, into space. It is slated to be Turkey's most advanced satellite for Earth observation in terms of image accuracy, communication speed and maneuvering capabilities.

Turkey launched its satellite, IMECE, on Saturday, into space, which is the first Turkish-made satellite to monitor from Vandenberg Base in the U.S. state of California.

The Turkish Minister of Industry and Technology, Mustafa Varank, said in a tweet that the satellite, which weighs about 700 kilograms, "had reached its orbit and sent its first signals."

The Turkish satellite can capture images from all over the world without geographical restrictions, as it will meet Turkey's need for high-resolution images in many areas, most notably natural disasters and mapping in a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 680 kilometers.

The satellite can take an image of an area 1,000 kilometers long and 16.73 kilometers wide at once, and it can download images to the ground station at a total data rate of 320 MB/s.