Satellite launch on Tuesday:

A new chapter in Lanka's history

By Shirajiv Sirimane

Sri Lanka will be a proud nation when it launches the country's first satellite on Tuesday, opening a new chapter in its history. Despite various ideas, the fact is that Sri Lanka now moves to an elite class among a handful of nations that own a communication satellite. In the region, Sri Lanka becomes the third country, after India and Pakistan, to do so. The Supreme Group, a fast-growing Sri Lankan company, becomes the 11th private company in the world to own a communications satellite.

The mentor behind this pioneering and historic project, M. Manivannan said after the huge success the company enjoyed doing large-scale regional business, they wanted to do something big and beneficial for Sri Lanka.

"Even after the end of the war against terrorism and despite the continued efforts put in by the Government to fast track development, there still was negativity and excuses for not doing justice to the country and its deserving masses. The launch of the satellite, we thought, will demonstrate the fact that 'Nothing is impossible' for a Sri Lankan."

This initiative will trigger a positive atitude, especially within the private sector and investor community thus generating such large-scale, Sri Lankan-initiated projects in Sri Lanka.

This new industry would usher numerous benefits to Sri Lanka commercially, creating a new industry in Sri Lanka, the space industry. It will bring US $ 320 million within the next three to five years. In addition there will be foreign exchange earnings along with high technology employment generation.

"When we launched our initial efforts to design, manufacture and launch a satellite owned by us, none of the Western manufacturers took us seriously. With the raised capital and firm plans in place, it was still an uphill task to find a suitable partner who would be willing to offer us technology support.

This is when we contacted the Chinese State-owned China Great Wall Industry Corporation. Ever since, it has been a journey of unmatched growth."

Asked what was the role of Rohitha Rajapaksa in this project, Manivannan said Rohitha is one of the finest space engineers the industry has ever created.

"This is not only accepted by the local industry experts, but also by most efficient foreign consultants and industry veterans with whom we associate. He has sacrificed his personal goals and has made a major contribution towards the technical aspect of our project.

"As you know, there are only a very few qualified Sri Lankans in the space industry. Hence we were fortunate to have him and the country was fortunate that he agreed to play a lead role in the creation of Sri Lanka's first satellite and the newly emerged space industry it has created. I fondly recall the fact that we persuaded him to postpone further studies and journey towards space for the sake of this project. I truly value his role in our mega project and look forward to receiving his continued support and guidance in the future as well."

Manivannan said after the first launch on Tuesday, they will have another joint launch in June next year and will have their fully-owned satellite launched in December 2015.

"In addition, we will develop the Pallekele Space Academy to a world class teleport, taking Sri Lanka into the modern space era with continuous improvement. We are already in talks with many other countries including Afghanistan to explore joint co-operation with them as well to grow SupremeSAT as a truly global satellite company."

"We will use this station to control our satellite and at the same time use it as a space academy since we can then offer on the job training for Sri Lankans on satellite technology.

A satellite launch centre is an expensive facility costing billions of US dollars. Hence, building a launch centre just to launch one satellite in Sri Lanka is not worthy. There are only a few launching pads in the world. "However, with our geographical location, Sri Lanka would be an ideal launch centre. May be, some day, if the Government would like us to build one here, we will be more than happy to build a launch centre in Sri Lanka, making it a new mega business/investment. We do all practising standards that will inspire confidence of our people. Our actions always spring from the desire to make our nation proud. We have already accomplished the first milestone with the first satellite. Under the visionary leadership of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, supported by the technical guidance and commitment of Rohitha Rajapaksa, we will continue to grow, taking Sri Lanka into greater heights," he said."Our first satellite will mainly be offering DTH (Direct to Home TV) services to potential satellite users. This is due to the fact that we mainly own KU transponders in the satellite.

The DTH market in the region is growing very fast. With the introduction of HD services, it will grow even faster. Therefore, we have a lot of demand from our customers for satellite space. In fact, the demand clearly surpasses the supply ability," he said.

After exclusively breaking the news of this venture to Sri Lanka and the world, there were many people who said that such a thing cannot be done; some even went to the extent of saying that this is just a publicity stunt by a few individuals and Sri Lanka does not have the capacity and the brains to own a satellite. When the first pictures of the satellite with the Sri Lanka flag was emailed from China, most of the critics of this project started to realise that Sri Lanka too can do wonders.

"As a nation, together we have created many wonders in the past. Hence, making Sri Lanka a wonder in modern Asia is possible indeed. Look at our national flag proudly flying into space. This should wipe out all past negativity. Let's build, based on this success. We have a stable nation with a very strong leadership, our location and community have its own advantages. Let us make good use of this and do justice to our motherland, reciprocating to the free education and free healthcare we received from the nation."

The launch of the satellite while taking Sri Lanka to a new era would also encourage people to think more positively and would also encourage more Sri Lankans to come up with similar novel concepts and would also help take the country closer towards becoming the Wonder of Asia.