Armenia’s first satellite Hayatat-1 was placed into orbit and started sending data. The purpose of the flight is to check the device’s ability to operate in space and test the design.

The Hayatat-1 satellite was launched at 22:18 EDT from Vandenberg Air Force base in California, USA. The Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket launched it into orbit along with dozens of other vehicles from different countries.

Hayatat-1 weighs about one kilogram and is a technical demonstrator. There are sensors to measure the intensity of light, magnetometers, means to direct the satellite to a specific location, and temperature sensors to monitor the status of various critical nodes of the device. The ship also includes an experimental inertial system created in Armenia that monitors Hayasat-1’s orientation in space. Additionally, the satellite is equipped with a GPS signal receiver.

After retracting, the device began to operate and radio broadcasts. According to the open project, it communicates with the Earth in the FM range at a frequency of 437.02 megahertz. The satellite orbits our planet in 90 minutes, in a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 550 kilometers. Such an orbit allows Hayatat-1 to pass the same point on the planet in approximately the same solar time. It is often used for satellites that take photographs of the Earth.

The developers of the satellite are the Armenian Space Research Laboratory “Bazumk” and the Scientific Innovation and Education Fund. The format of the device is CubeSat.

You can watch the launch video on the “Bazumk” channel below:

“We tried to start from the simplest because there are many questions regarding the preparation of documents that Armenia is experiencing for the first time. Hayk Martirosyan, technical director of the Bazumk laboratory, said that various approvals are required to send a satellite into space.

According to the plan, the device should operate in space for at least six months, and the total resource intended for the ideal development of events should be five years. If temperature and other sensors show that Hayatat-1’s design is designed correctly and allows the satellite to operate efficiently in space, the satellite’s creators plan to introduce more complex devices.

It is worth noting that “Bazumk” received a license from the Armenian authorities for space activities only in September 2023, that is, recently.

This is not the first satellite launched by Armenia; It was the satellite of the iSIM-90 series launched last year and is capable of photographing the Earth’s surface (Hayasat-1 cannot do this). But then the material part of the device (much larger than Hayasat-1) was made by the Spanish company Satlantis, a long-time player in this market. Hayatat-1 was made “on-site”, although it used an imported element base.