New partnership: Nara Space Technology

Scanway has entered into a partnership with Korean satellite and remote sensing company Nara Space Technology

Scanway entered into a cooperation agreement with Nara Space Technology, one of Korea’s leading entities in satellite manufacturing, remote sensing and artificial intelligence, on January 30, 2024. The goal of the cooperation is to develop a microsatellite system for Earth observation, develop optical instruments and develop observation payloads for the NarSha project, a constellation of microsatellites for methane monitoring.

The NarSha project, which will include the K3M demonstration microsatellite, aims to build a constellation of at least a dozen satellites for a global infrastructure for monitoring point sources of methane in near real time and with spatial resolution at the local level. The project consortium includes: Nara Space Technology (the leader), Seoul National University and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute. Funding has already been secured for the project, and a demonstration satellite is scheduled for launch in the fourth quarter of 2026.

The K3M microsatellite will be equipped with an optical instrument for detecting methane plumes in the visible (VIS), near-infrared (NIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR) bands. The spectral resolution of the imaging instrument is expected to be as low as less than 1 nanometer, and the minimum spatial resolution (GSD) at an altitude of 500 km is 30 meters. The mass of the satellite will be a minimum of 32 kg, and the size is 16U, which means it will consist of 16 cubes measuring 10 cm x 10 cm x 11.35 cm.

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