Executive Director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Satellite Systems (CRCSS) in Australia, Dr Brian Embleton, says that the Korean microsatellite KAISTSAT-4 is scheduled to be launched in 2002. It will carry a sophisticated communications package developed in Australia.
Dr Embleton says that the package, originally developed for the FedSat Centenary microsatellite, to be launched in 2000, can receive, store and transmit messages in three frequency bands.
“The lowest (UHF) band can be used by low-power and low-cost terminals. One application is to acquire data from ocean buoys that measure and store temperature and salinity,” says Dr Embleton. “The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) also plans to use modified ground terminals in various applications such as fleet management, traffic monitoring, and animal tracking.