TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) aims to launch the first of its satellites from the FORMOSAT-8 project in October 2025 to capture images of Earth’s surface.

National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Minister Wu Tsung-tsong (吳政忠) said the program comprises six satellites with the first to launch aboard a SpaceX rocket, per CNA. Upon successful orbit, it will capture higher-quality real-time images of Earth’s surface, he said.

FORMOSAT-5, launched in 2017, was Taiwan’s first independently developed high-resolution optical remote sensing satellite, equipped with a telescopic camera for observing Earth from space, CNA reported. However, the satellite’s early images were blurry due to inaccurate focusing.

Faced with this problem, Liu Hsiao-ching (劉小菁), who leads FORMOSAT-8, said she used her mathematics background and image processing experience to edit the photos in post. She said, “90% of our efforts have been spent to avoid making the same mistake again.” 

Team member Huang Po-hsuan (黃柏瑄) said that FORMOSAT-8’s optics and instruments have all improved immensely.

Huang said the key reason FORMOSAT-5 failed to produce clear images was the deviation of the collimator, a device that controls focusing. To address this, TASA acquired a new collimator, identical to those used by international satellite companies, he explained.

TASA Director Wu Jong-shinn (吳宗信) said FORMOSAT-8 will serve in a 561-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit in the future, with a ground resolution of up to one meter and a post-processing resolution of 0.7 meters. “In other words, due to its superior resolution, FORMOSAT-8 will produce clearer and sharper images of the same area of the Earth’s surface compared to FORMOSAT-5,” he said.