AlSat-2A: 1 year old

The Alsat-2A satellite built by Astrium for the Algerial Space Agency (ASAL) has now been in orbit for one year. Since its launch on 12 July 2010 it has been providing 2.5m resolution imagery of extremely high quality.

ALSAT-2 is the first Earth observation satellite from Astrium’s AstroSat100 product line, based on the Myriade platform, also comprising the first flight model of the new NAOMI optical instrument.

The contract covered design and development of two identical satellites: the first, ALSAT-2A, was built, integrated and tested by Astrium. The second, ALSAT-2B, will be built in Algeria by ASAL engineers.

The two-satellite system is enabling Algeria to obtain very high quality images for use in a wide variety of applications, including cartography, management of agriculture, forestry, water, mineral and oil resources, crop protection, management of natural disasters and land planning.