The technology can aid emergency services fighting forest fires when normal satellite images are obscured by smoke.
The breakthrough could reduce production costs for anything using precious metals.
The satellite will help map the planet’s surface and take images of one of its moons.
Polish company SENER Polska will design and produce the equipment for installing the new satellites. It was awarded the contract by European multinational technology corporation OHB, the main contractor of the Electra programme.
The last of eight Polish devices to be used for testing new-generation European meteorological satellites under the European Space Agency's (ESA) MetOp-SG programme were delivered to ESA in mid-August.
The fifth Polish satellite in near-Earth orbit, the KRAKsat will be the world’s first to use a ferrofluid flywheel. The main task of the satellite is to investigate how this will behave in space and whether it can be used in the space industry as a flywheel.
With over 50 Polish companies actively operating in satellite data retention and processing, Poland is reaching for its part of the 300 billion euro pie.
A retractable system will slowly cause the satellite to burn up, helping reduce the satellite’s lifetime from over fifteen years down to a dozen or so months. If the experiment works it will be a major victory in the fight against space debris.
Once the satellite has passed the necessary testing, it will be launched on board a rocket and taken to the International Space Station, from there it will be released into Earth’s low orbit.
Next April, the Światowid satellite will finish its testing phase. It will be flown to the International Space Station (ISS) from where it will be launched into orbit, the president of SatRevolution, Grzegorz Zwoliński, told PAP.
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