The largest and most advanced Polish satellite, EagleEye, which was launched into orbit today aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, has been successfully placed into orbit. As mission director, engineer Marcin Mazur, explained in an interview with RMF FM reporter Anna Zakrzewska – the Polish telescope placed on it will allow Earth observations with exceptionally high resolution.
Eagle Eye was created by a scientific-industrial consortium led by Creotech and co-created by Scanway and the Space Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
“The Falcon 9 rocket will put EagleEye into space. This is the moment we have been waiting for for a long time, together with the entire Polish space industry. (…) For me personally, this will be a very special event. 12 years ago, when Creotech Instruments SA was established, we announced that the company’s goal was to obtain the ability to design and produce fully Polish satellites. Nobody believed it then. And now, after building laboratories, production facilities and, above all, attracting excellent people to Creotech, on whose shoulders rests the mission of building EagleEye, we are ready,” said Grzegorz Brona, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Creotech Instruments SA, before the start.
Marcin Mazur explained in an interview with RMF FM that previous Polish satellites were assembled from ready-made elements that could be obtained from suppliers. The mass of these satellites ranged from one kilogram to several kilograms. Our satellite was designed and built from scratch in Poland – explains the mission director, adding that all Polish satellites built and sent into space so far weighed less than EagleEye. This time, our specialists sent into space approximately 55 kg of domestic technological thought.
The expert explained that the first basic task is to prove that Poland can create space technology.
Nothing this complicated from Poland has ever flown into space before. We want to prove that our concept for building this satellite is right and will work. – explained Marcin Mazur.