Diwata-2 to be launched next year

MANILA, Philippines - Diwata-2, the second microsatellite to be designed and built by Filipino engineers, is set for launch in 2018, according to Science and Technology Secretary Fortunato dela Peña.

Dela Peña said the microsatellite, reportedly bigger than Diwata-1 that was successfully launched into orbit last year, was scheduled for completion.

The DOST chief said that the launch depends largely on “economics,” whether in the first or second half of the year.

The group of Filipino engineers designing and building Diwata-2 had planned to make some innovations on Diwata-1.

Like Diwata-1, Diwata-2 is being designed and built by a group of Filipino engineers sent on Philippine government scholarships at Tohoku University and Hokkaido University, both in Japan.

The Filipinos are working on graduate degrees – MS in Aerospace Engineering in Tohoku University and MS in Mechanical and Space Engineering and Cosmosciences from Hokkaido University – while at the same time joining the microsatellite building program including actual design, fabrication and assembly of the Diwata microsatellites.

Five of the engineer-scholars – Delburg Mitchao, Benjamin Jonah Magallon and Kaye Kristine Vergel – are at Hokkaido University while Ariston Gonzalez and John Leur Labrador are at Tohoku University. They are expected to graduate this March.

Two of the original group of seven scholars that went to Japan in 2015, Julian Marvick Oliveros and Juan Paolo Espiritu, resigned last year due to complaints regarding lack of compensation and satisfactory recognition as engineers allegedly by the DOST. 

Dela Peña said that he was set to go to Hokkaido University next month to attend the graduation of Mitchao, Magallon and Vergel on March 28 upon the invitation of the Japanese university.