KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 20 (The Star) -- Six countries in Asia and the Middle East have expressed interest formally to use the imaging services of Malaysia’s second remote sensing satellite, RazakSAT, which was launched early last week.

Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili said the countries were interested to buy time and space from RazakSat for mapping or taking images of fires, illegal logging, geographical information such as agriculture landscape.

“Six countries have made formal contacts to use the services. These are countries along the equatorial region, Another six other countries are on queue to make contacts,” he told reporters after the launch of the National ICT Association of Malaysia (Pikom) ICT Month 2009 at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre here Monday.

“It is a pride to Malaysia because not only is it the first in the world but also young scientists, aged 35 worked on it. They are coming back today. That’s the whole innovation in that place. By tomorrow, RazakSat will start imaging.”

He also said that plans to develop RazakSat 2 under 10th Malaysia plan, were underway.

RazakSat, which is the world’s first satelite in the world that operates at the Near Equatorial Orbit (NEqO) is a 10-year programme, costing US$40mil (nearly RM150mil).

The satellite, which is a continuation of the TiungSAT-1 programme, launched in 2000, blasted off into space at 11.35am Malaysian time from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean’s Marshall Islands on July 14.