ISLAMABAD – This July Pakistan’s Space and Upper Atmosphere ResearchCommission (SUPARCO) has sent two satellites in space from a launchingfacility in China after often being criticized for not being competentenough like its Indian/Chinese counterparts.
According to a local media reportlink,one of the satellites launched the PakTES-1A has been developed byPakistani engineers to primarily aim at remote sensing. Moreover, it hadbeen reported that the completion of the satellite was a tough task as itcould not afford delays.
A SUPARCO official quoted by the local media said, “The other satellite,PRSS-1, developed by China and Pakistan in collaboration, was due to launchon July 9, and PakTES-1A had to be co-launched, thus the Pakistaniengineers worked day and night to have it ready by then.”
Annually, developed and emerging countries like the United States, EuropeanUnion, Japan, China and India cumulatively spend trillions of dollars ontechnologies “to send humans into space, deploy sophisticated satellitesfor a variety of purposes, and to find new worlds through space andground-based telescopes”.
“Pakistan, too, has historically relied on China to get its satelliteslaunched into space. Yet to come on par with India in space sciences,Pakistan also lags behind in research related to astronomy with no majorastronomical breakthrough coming from indigenous institutions,” the reportstated.
In addition to that, there are astronomy societies in all major cities,working at their best to spread awareness in masses about the universe withwhatever resources and technical expertise that they have. There arelocated in Karachi, Hyderabad, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and Quetta.
Read Top Stories
The local media report also stated that the Karachi Astronomers Societythat was founded in 2008 is known for “owning one of the biggest privatetelescopes in Pakistan”.
It is an 18-inch diameter telescope which belongs to the society’s ChairmanKhalid Marwat.
In addition to that, Karachi also is home to Pakistan’s biggest telescope,a 24-inch diameter telescope that is owned by astronomy enthusiast NaveedMerchant.
Similarly, the Lahore Astronomical Society (LAST) is also among the mostwell-equipped astronomy societies of the country.
