UAE Sirb project, Dh3 billion space fund: All you need to know

The UAE recently launched a new space project and a Dh3 billion space fund to expand its growing capabilities in the space sector and find solutions to climate change. The space project, Sirb, aims to develop radar satellites that can operate day and night with optimum accuracy. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, launched the project together with the Dh3 billion space fund. “We can only contribute to advancing human development by adopting state-of-the-art sciences and technologies,” Sheikh Mohammed said. The Dh3 billion space fund will be used to support the establishment of UAE companies in the space sector and the UAE’s space programme. The fund will also support new national and research strategic projects, and help develop the capabilities of Emirati engineering cadres in space technology. The fund will encourage partnerships between international and UAE enterprises, providing them with incentives as a part of the UAE Space Agency’s Space Economic Zones Programme. The fund’s first investment will be in the development and launch of a constellation of advanced imaging satellites for the UAE using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology. The constellation is to be named Sirb after the Arabic term for a flock of birds, and will address the critical need for better environmental and land usage monitoring, data collection and analysis to meet today’s global challenges. The satellites will be able to create highly detailed and complex radar images of land use, ice cover, surface changes and characterisation, with a wide range of scientific and commercial applications. Using SAR technology, the high-tech satellites will allow scientists to continue observations day and night, through fog and cloud cover as well as combining observations to create big data pictures simply not possible through conventional imaging. These small-scale satellites are more agile, faster to develop and more powerful – an indicator of the types of new generation systems that technology is now making possible. The six-year satellite development programme will see the first satellite launch in three years, a much faster time to launch than was possible using traditional earth observation satellite design principles. The Sirb satellites will be built through a number of partnerships between the UAE public and private sector together with international players, with submissions being opened for a range of system integration, development and subsystem construction opportunities as part of the constellation development, launch, operation and commercialisation plan. The Sirb constellation provides a private sector opportunity that bridges the gap between the Emirates Mars Mission and the upcoming Beyond Mars Mission to Venus and the Main Asteroid Belt, due to launch in 2028. ICA/Expat Media
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