The Philippines will launch its largest satellite yet in 2026, the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) announced yesterday.
The launch may probably be in the last part of 2025 but more realistically in the first quarter of 2026, PhilSA director-general Joel Marciano Jr. said yesterday.
The next-generation satellite, called MULA for Multispectral Unit for Land Assessment, was originally planned for launch to space by 2023. The investment cost for the satellite is at least $34 million.
MULA will have nine spectral bands for environmental applications including land cove change mapping, crop monitoring, and disaster and forestry management.
“There’s another aspect of space exploration, looking back at Earth through satellite observation of agriculture, emergency and disaster response, bodies of water, natural resources, the environment,” Marciano said.
“Filipino fingerpints will be on this satellite, and it will open doors for local companies and encourage them to get involved in space science and technology, Marciano told the Malacanang Insider program of PTV4.
MULA will be launched on a Falcon 9 rocket as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-16 mission, scheduled sometime between October 2025 and March 2026.
MULA, bigger than the Diwata and Maya nanosatellites deployed in space before, will be positioned in a sun-synchronous low Earth orbit and will travel 10 times around the planet each day.
MULA will weigh 130 kilograms, the largest Filipino-made satellite so far.
It will carry a TrueColour camera which has a capability to capture images with a 5-meter or 16-feet resolution and a wide swatch width of 120 kilometers. Each day, it can take images of 100,000 square kilometers of land area daily.
An Automatic Identification System (AIS) and Automatic Dependent Surveillance—Broadcast (ADS—B) will detect and track aircraft and ships.
The satellite project is a collaboration between PhilSA, Department of Science and Technology, University of the Philippines Diliman and DOST’s Advanced Science and Technology Institute.
MULA is also co-designed with British firm Surrey Satellite Technology under which Filipino engineers learned satellite design and manufacturing process.
PhilSA is the central government agency addressing all national issues and activities related to space science and technology applications.
It is an attached agency of the Office of the President for purposes of policy and program coordination, and to ensure alignment in national policies and priorities.
