DubaiSat-1 is an Emirati

United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...

 remote sensing

Remote sensing

Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon, without making physical contact with the object. In modern usage, the term generally refers to the use of aerial sensor technologies to detect and classify objects on Earth by means of propagated signals Remote sensing...

 satellite

Satellite

In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....

 which is being operated by the Emirates Institution of Advanced Science and Technology. It was constructed by the Satrec Initiative, based on the SI-200

SI-200

The SI-200 satellite bus was a model of satellite, based on the Malaysian RazakSAT, produced by the South Korean Satrec Initiative. The bus was suitable for small satellites where the accommodation of Earth observation or other scientific payloads is required, and was used on the Emirati remote...

 satellite bus

Satellite bus

A satellite bus or spacecraft bus is the general model on which multiple-production satellite spacecraft are often based. The bus is the infrastructure of a spacecraft, usually providing locations for the payload .They are most commonly used for geosynchronous satellites, particularly...

.

It was launched into a 680 kilometres (422.5 mi) sun-synchronous

Sun-synchronous orbit

A Sun-synchronous orbit is a geocentric orbit which combines altitude and inclination in such a way that an object on that orbit ascends or descends over any given point of the Earth's surface at the same local mean solar time. The surface illumination angle will be nearly the same every time...

 low Earth orbit

Low Earth orbit

A low Earth orbit is generally defined as an orbit within the locus extending from the Earth’s surface up to an altitude of 2,000 km...

 by ISC Kosmotras

ISC Kosmotras

The International Space Company Kosmotras or ISC Kosmotras is a joint project, between Russia, Ukraine, and the Kazakhstan, established in 1997. It developed and now operates a commercial expendable launch system using the Dnepr rocket. The Dnepr is a converted Soviet era SS-18 ICBM decommissioned...

, who used a Dnepr-1 carrier rocket. The Deimos-1

Deimos-1

Deimos-1 is a Spanish Earth imaging satellite which is operated by Deimos Imaging. It was constructed by Surrey Satellite Technology, based on the SSTL-100 satellite bus. Deimos Imaging commercializes its imagery directly but also has distribution agreements with other entities like Astrium GEO and...

, UK-DMC 2

UK-DMC 2

UK-DMC 2 is a British Earth imaging satellite which is operated by DMC International Imaging. It was constructed by Surrey Satellite Technology, based on the SSTL-100 satellite bus. It is part of Britain's contribution to the Disaster Monitoring Constellation, which is coordinated by DMC...

, Nanosat 1B, AprizeSat-3 and AprizeSat-4 satellites were launched on the same rocket as secondary payloads. The launch occurred at 18:46 GMT on 29 July 2009, and was conducted from Site 109/95

Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 109

Site 109/95 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome is a missile silo built for use by the R-36 missile, which has been converted into a launch site for the Dnepr-1 carrier rocket....

 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome

Baikonur Cosmodrome

The Baikonur Cosmodrome , also called Tyuratam, is the world's first and largest operational space launch facility. It is located in the desert steppe of Kazakhstan, about east of the Aral Sea, north of the Syr Darya river, near Tyuratam railway station, at 90 meters above sea level...

 in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

.

DubaiSat will return imagery of the Earth which the Emirati government will use to help plan future land development programmes. It will relay these images to a ground station in Dubai

Dubai

Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...

 which was built by ViaSat

ViaSat

ViaSat is a communication company based in Carlsbad, California, that provides equipment and services for military and commercial communications, primarily in satellite related technologies...

. The satellite has a mass of around 200 kilograms (440.9 lb), and a design life of five years. It is controlled by a three-axis stabilisation

Three-axis stabilisation

Three-axis stabilisation involves the use of three gyroscopes—one for each axis —to keep satellites correctly oriented in space.The same technology is used to 'steer' guided missiles, but it involves only 2 gyroscopes....

 system, with pointing accuracy of 0.2 degrees. Its power system consists of three deployable solar panels charging three 6 Ah nickel-cadmium batteries

Nickel-cadmium battery

The nickel–cadmium battery ' is a type of rechargeable battery using nickel oxide hydroxide and metallic cadmium as electrodes....

. The solar panels are predicted to generate 360 W of power at the beginning of the satellite's operational life, and 336 W of power at the end.