Taiwan\u2019s space agency has selected Italian launch provider Avio to deploy four Earth observation satellites under its FORMOSAT programme, strengthening international cooperation in satellite launch services and marking a key step in Taiwan\u2019s expanding space ambitions.<\/p>\n
The Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) confirmed that Avio will be responsible for launching the FORMOSAT-8C and 8D satellites, as well as the FORMOSAT-9A and 9B spacecraft. The missions will be carried out using the Vega C rocket from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana.<\/p>\n
Avio disclosed on Dec. 19 that it had secured two launch contracts with a combined value exceeding \u20ac100 million, though it did not identify the customers at the time. Two days earlier, TASA published a tender award notice indicating that Avio had been selected to support four satellites within its Earth observation programme, with a maximum project budget of NTD 2.56 billion (around \u20ac69 million).<\/p>\n
The FORMOSAT-8 programme consists of six high-resolution optical Earth observation satellites. The first was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in November, while the next spacecraft, FORMOSAT-8B, is scheduled for launch in December 2026. Launch timelines for the remaining satellites have not yet been announced.<\/p>\n
The FORMOSAT-9 system will comprise two synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites, planned for launch in 2028 and 2030. All four missions awarded to Avio will fly on the Vega C launcher, which returned to service in December 2024 after a two-year grounding following a 2022 failure.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a media briefing after the 342nd European Space Agency Council meeting, ESA\u2019s acting Director of Space Transportation, Toni Tolker-Nielsen, said the pace of future Vega C missions would depend largely on customer readiness. \u201cIt\u2019s more a question of payloads than availability of rockets,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taiwan\u2019s space agency has selected Italian launch provider Avio to deploy four Earth observation satellites under its FORMOSAT programme, strengthening international cooperation in satellite launch services and marking a key step in Taiwan\u2019s expanding space ambitions. The Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) confirmed that Avio will be responsible for launching the FORMOSAT-8C and 8D satellites, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5725,1244,159,246,244,831,5335,2188,5959,5783,589,6313,6314,916],"class_list":["post-20141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-asia","tag-avio","tag-earth-observation","tag-esa","tag-europe","tag-european-space-agency","tag-formosat","tag-italy","tag-satellite-launch","tag-space-industry","tag-taiwan","tag-taiwan-space-agency","tag-toni-tolker-nielsen","tag-vega-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}