Turkish Space Agency (TUA), which implemented the National Space Program in line with the policies announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, focused on achieving the 10 targets it set.
A road map was also determined for the program’s goal of “increasing competence in space by investing in the field of space weather or meteorology”. In this context, the “Space Weather Application Center” (UHUM) is being established to monitor and model the effects of changes in space weather. The center is planned to start operating in 2025.
It is aimed for UHUM to support and integrate dispersed academic studies, to establish the link between academic studies and services such as space weather, monitoring of near space objects, space environment simulations, to ensure the continuity of services and to represent Turkey in international organizations.
Changes in space weather can cause outages
Space weather, a branch of space physics, studies the changing conditions in the Solar System. While the physical events here primarily affect the lifespan of the satellites, they can also cause disruptions or interruptions in services such as communication and navigation provided by the satellites.
On Earth, solar storms can cause electricity transmission systems to fail and long-term power outages in large areas, as well as affect many issues from communications to geophysical measurements and even climate. Therefore, space weather needs to be constantly monitored, predicted, and physical phenomena need to be better understood.
Various international organizations and some countries provide services for space weather while creating centers and projects for this purpose. In Turkey, the need for a center that will coordinate studies on space weather, science and astrophysics, provide basic services and carry out international cooperation studies will be met with UHUM. It is envisaged that the studies here will support the work of universities and research institutions on space weather and create projects for experiments to be carried out in space.
The nearest target is “space traveler”
This year, Alper Gezeravcı and Tuva Cihangir Atasever were determined as Turkey’s first space travelers, as one of the closest goals in the program was “sending a Turkish citizen to space”. Alper Gezeravcı is planned to go on space travel at the beginning of 2024.
Within the scope of the goal of “making the first contact with the Moon”, a hard landing is expected to be made in 2026, and a soft landing is expected to be made in the following years.
Within the scope of the program, to create a trademark that can compete with the world in the field of new generation satellite development, to develop a regional positioning and timing system for Turkey, to provide access to space and to establish a spaceport business, to take the country to a higher level in astronomical observations and ground tracking of space objects, Developing the space industry economy in the country and establishing a space technology development zone are also among the goals.
