Almaty (TDI): Kazakhstan and China have agreed to collaborate on the construction of a ground satellite station in Almaty, a $3 million project aimed at boosting scientific collaboration and improving access to satellite data in the region.
The station will be built on the campus of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, in partnership with China’s Hainan Satellite Data and Application Research Center and Northwestern Polytechnical University.
Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Science and Higher Education said the facility will operate on the X-band frequency, allowing it to receive and transmit data from both Kazakh and foreign satellites.
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The agreement was finalized during a recent visit by a delegation from China’s Hainan Province, during which officials signed a protocol confirming the station’s location at the Kazakh branch of Northwestern Polytechnical University.
“This project stems from a research partnership we signed last year with Northwestern Polytechnical University to jointly develop and use a microsatellite,” said Margulan Ibraimov, Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University.
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“That agreement followed a joint statement by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Chinese President Xi Jinping during his state visit to Kazakhstan. Our teams are currently working on the NKSAT project, a new-generation microsatellite that will be the first of its kind in the region,” Ibraimov added.
Once operational, the ground station will support the collection and exchange of satellite data across Kazakhstan and parts of western China.
Farkhund Yousafzai is an Associate Editor at The Diplomatic Insight.
