UAE to develop and launch SAR Satellite Constellation 'Sirb'; maiden launch in 2025

The United Arab Emirates has initiated work towards building and launching an advanced constellation of Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR) satellites, that will serve as eyes-in-the-sky during all-weather and day/night conditions. This proposed constellation of SAR satellites has been named 'Sirb', which is an Arabic term for a flock of birds. 'Sirb' is the first project to be funded by the UAE's newly-announced National Space Fund, which will invest AED3 billion($816mn) in supporting the growth of the UAE's space sector.

UAE's National Space Fund is a new national investment and development fund for the space sector, which will support new programmes launched to support international and Emirati companies co-operating in leading-edge space sector engineering, sciences and research applications.

Her Excellency Sarah bint Yousef Al Amiri, Chairwoman of the UAE Space Agency and MoS for Public Education and Advanced Technology, said "A long-term plan and programme for the development of the Emirates’ space sector is in place to create economic opportunities, new jobs and help to fund global partnerships and new leaders in technology, space sciences and engineering here in the UAE. We are planning for a bright future filled with new challenges and openings for our young people – and this fund is precisely targeted at building opportunities for international co-operation in building Emirati enterprises.”

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SAR technology combines the power of imaging satellites with cloud and ground-penetrating capabilities that can be used for urban planning, archaeology, weather prediction to atmospheric quality analysis and climate change mapping, besides a host of civil and strategic applications.

“SAR technology leapfrogs traditional imaging satellites, allowing us to continue making detailed observations through day and night, fog and cloud cover, creating complex data sets simply not possible through conventional imaging. These small-scale satellites are more agile, faster to develop and more powerful" the Chairwoman of the UAE Space Agency added.

The six-year satellite development programme will see the maiden 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 Emirati 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.

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