The satellite was entirely designed by Taiwanese engineers and 70% of the hardware came from local components suppliers.

SpaceX performed the launch. It had to pay a $2.1 million penalty for being a year late because the original rocket designed for the launch blew up on its Cape Canaveral launch pad in September last year.

“Space is now a field that Taiwan can participate in and we hope we can become internationally competitive in the future,” said Taiwan’s technology and science minister Chen Liang-gee, “we will try to commercialise our space technology, and help local component makers to enter the industry.”

The satellite is called Formosat-5. Next year Taiwan intends to launch Formisat-7.