Singapore Readying to Launch Israeli-Manufactured UAV
The DS-SAR was acquired in 2018, meaning that its development process lasted about five years
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has sold Singapore a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which is scheduled for launch later this month via an Indian launcher.
According to Next Spaceflight, the DS-SAR is “a Singaporean Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Earth Observation satellite built by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), to be used by both the Singaporean government DSTA (Defence Science and Technology Agency) and commercially operated by ST Electronics.
Singapore acquired the radar in 2018, meaning that it took five years to develop until launch, as reported by space.org.sg. This is the average development timeline for aerial industry satellites.
The website mentions that when the satellite's acquisition was announced in 2018, Singapore’s Minister of Trade and Industry, S. Iswaran, said that it will serve both governmental and commercial purposes and support the imaging requirements of Singapore – including maritime security and oil leak detection.
The SAR payload is developed by Elta, an aerospace industry subsidiary. It employs the same technology used in the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s SAR satellites.