What is the National Space Agency of Singapore, and what is its mandate?

It has a customer base of more than 50 satellite makers, including those based in the US, Japan, India and Europe.

The NSAS will also help both international and local companies expand their presence through global ties and programmes that the EDB and Enterprise Singapore have established.

Today, Singapore has more than 2,000 people working in 70 companies within the space sector. Most of the employees are engineers, scientists and analysts.

One of the biggest players is ST Engineering. It designs and builds satellites, including the satellite’s primary system known as a satellite bus, which ensures it stays in orbit.

The company has launched five satellites since 2015, with plans to develop and launch more – Nebula, Polaris and the NeuSAR-2 Constellation – within the next few years.

These will be used to ensure fast and frequent delivery of high-resolution satellite imagery from space to Earth to support time-sensitive environmental monitoring and disaster response efforts.

In particular, optical imaging satellite Polaris will be able to analyse photos captured with an AI system onboard, and prioritise the transmission of images that are needed during urgent events to accelerate the decision-making process.

Another Singapore company, Addvalue Technologies, has developed a device – a world’s first – to let satellites beam information back to Earth at any time of the day.

Traditionally, satellites orbiting close to Earth can beam information back to Earth only when they fly over a ground station.

This happens every 90 minutes when satellites complete an orbit.

Addvalue’s Inter-satellite Data Relay System has been installed in more than 30 satellites in space.

NSAS will act as a centralised point of contact, through a new multi-agency operations centre, for all government agencies’ data requests from space.

The centre can keep track of the number of satellites in space, their owners, where they are located and what kind of information is beamed back to Earth, said Mr Chew Hwee Yong, chief executive of the Association of Aerospace Industries (Singapore).

“It can do away with duplication of efforts,” said Mr Chew.

Government agencies may need satellite images of a specific location for all sorts of applications including environmental monitoring, urban planning, port operations and food security.

For instance, satellite images of the area around Singapore ports can be used to study port safety and operations.

In the US, Landsat satellites launched by NASA and the US Geological Survey monitor crop health and signs of drought.

In Singapore, satellites are key to providing communications to places where cellular towers cannot reach, such as out at sea and in remote rural areas.

Over the past two decades, more than 30 satellites have been launched by the Singapore Government, academic researchers and firms here for maritime surveillance, disaster management and communications.

NSAS will also develop national legislation and regulations for the space sector to boost Singapore’s international standing.

Dr Tan said in February that the goal is to be pro-innovation and pro-business, while meeting high standards for space safety and sustainability.

In 2024, OSTIn put out a set of guidelines recommending individuals and organisations to register objects launched into outer space, and inform the office of any significant changes such as the loss of ability to communicate with the object, or the transfer of the object into another orbit. However, these requirements are not legally binding.

For a start, the guidelines recommend that all space-related activities in Singapore be aligned with practices spelt out in international standards such as the ones set by the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and the International Organization for Standardization.

One area Singapore could potentially look into is space situational awareness, given the rising congestion.

For instance, under the UN committee, companies are urged to prevent space debris from damaging spacecraft or potentially killing the astronauts manning them.

Mitigation measures include designing space systems to release minimal debris during operations, which will limit the probability of accidental collision with objects.

These recommendations are meant to help UN member states craft legislation to govern companies in the sector.

Correction note: The story has been edited for clarity.