Crossroads Asia | Politics | Central Asia

The Mystery of Kyrgyzstan’s Newly Launched Satellite(s) 

At first glance, the story of Kyrgyzstan’s satellite launch seemed like a genuine achievement. Then the story changed.

Image of Kyrgyzstan’s unnamed, loaf-of-bread-sized nanosatellite.

On October 1, Kyrgyzstan reportedly joined Central Asia’s other spacefaring nations, successfully launching a domestically designed and produced nanosatellite aboard a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California

According to Kyrgyzstan’s government, the unnamed, loaf-of-bread-sized spacecraft weighs 5 kilograms, cost around $130,0000, was equipped with high-resolution cameras, and was — nearly exclusively — the product of domestic innovation. 

The satellite was assembled by two local companies, Kyrgyz Asman and Kyrgyz Electronics, Bishkek stated. The latter company’s director Ilya Cherny did admit that the technology behind the satellite was largely Russian, but pointed out that the team behind its production consisted of 10 homegrown engineers. 

The government also said the satellite would help advance Kyrgyzstan’s top agricultural, environmental, and strategic priorities over its purported 15-year lifespan.

In a statement published on September 24, the country’s Ministry of Water Resources, Agriculture and Processing Industry stated the satellite’s data would track crop conditions, detect early signs of drought, and monitor glaciers.

Speaking from California on launch day, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov said that the country had previously had to pay to obtain this kind of data from other countries, no matter whether it was “information on 100 hectares, 1,000 hectares, or the weather.”

Japarov suggested that the satellite would allow “every square meter” of Kyrgyzstan’s land to be studied to determine its potential arability, while touting the launch as an achievement in national self-sufficiency.

“We did not have our own satellite before… now we will no longer be dependent on [other countries],” Japarov added. “We will control it ourselves 100 percent from Bishkek.”

Imaged shared by the Kyrgyz Ministry of Water Resources, Agriculture and Processing Industry depicting the unnamed nanosatellite.

Cosmically Large Scandal

At first glance, the story of Kyrgyzstan’s satellite launch seemed like a genuine achievement. The country had joined Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and – as of this August – Uzbekistan in the ranks of Central Asia’s spacefarers, largely thanks to its own ingenuity.

The success had been extensively covered in domestic, regional, and international media. And then came a confusing development. 

On October 2, the day after launch, news reports began to include a previously unmentioned detail: the satellite was a joint effort between Kyrgyzstan and the United Arab Emirates.

Three days later, a Kyrgyz news site published a notice that Kyrgyzstan had established a new space monitoring center to receive, process, and utilize data transmitted from the newly launched Altair satellite. 

This was striking for two reasons. First, the name “Altair” had been missing from earlier government press releases. Second – and more importantly – it said the monitoring center would be “provided” data coming from the “UAE-operated” satellite by a body called the Abu Dhabi Maritime Academy. 

Suddenly, Japarov’s claims that Kyrgyzstan would be “no longer dependent” on other countries began to ring hollow.

Not only had Russian technology supposedly been used to design the satellite, but the UAE was apparently going to operate the craft, with Kyrgyzstan merely receiving “access” to its data.

It also didn’t help that Gulf-focused news sites were calling Altair the “first satellite developed and built by UAE engineers,” without even mentioning Bishkek’s involvement in the project.  

What, then, had happened on October 1? Had Kyrgyzstan really launched a satellite of its own making? If so, in what ways were other countries involved? And if the craft launched from California was primarily........

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