Japan holds Myanmar’s first satellite on space station after coup

Myanmar’s first satellite built by Japan’s Hokkaido University in a joint project with Myanmar’s government-funded Myanmar Aerospace Engineering University (MAEU) with the cost of $15 million is being held on board the International Space Station following the Myanmar coup.

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It is the first of a set of two 50 kg microsatellites equipped with cameras designed to monitor agriculture and fisheries.

Human rights activists and some officials in Japan worry that those cameras could be used for military purposes by the junta that seized power in Myanmar on Feb. 1.

The satellite was launched by NASA on Feb 20 as a small part of a large and varied payload of supplies to the International Space Station 400 km (250 miles) above the earth.

It has since been kept by JAXA inside Japan’s Kibo experiment module. JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi is one of the seven crew members now on board the space station.