UAE to launch Khaifa Sat in 2017, says Mohammed

(Wam) / 29 December 2013

Khalifa Sat will be the first satellite to be fully built and manufactured at the hands of UAE’s competent experts. 

His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, on Sunday launched the executive phases for building the Khalifa Sat, the first satellite to be fully built and manufactured at the hands of UAE’s competent experts and to be place on orbit by 2017.

Khalifa Sat will be the first Arab-made satellite, catapulting the Arab region into a new era of space industry and competition in space sciences.

While launching the promising project at the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST), Shaikh Mohammed said “Khalifa Sat is a message to all Arabs that Arab ushering into the space era is neither out of reach nor impossible and our State will be a leader in this industry as long as we have the confidence and courage to enter into competition with major countries in this field,” Shaikh Mohammed said, dedicating the ambitious space project to the President, His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

“Our doors will remain open for cooperation with all Arab countries in space technology and engineering,” Shaikh Mohammed added.