The countdown to Feb. 14, 2027 has started for the “sounding rocket” that the Philippines will send into space. The rocket launch project is aptly dubbed “Siklab” or ignite. The clock stood at 193:08:13:20 for the upcoming launch of the Siklab rocket program that was officially presented at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay weekly news forum last Wednesday.
Actually, the clock started ticking after President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) proudly announced the rocket launch in his penultimate State of the Nation Address (SONA) in Congress last July 27. In that SONA, PBBM asked all Filipinos to watch out soon for our own rocket launch that will kick off our country’s journey into outer space.
Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) director-general Gay Jane Perez; Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA) administrator and chief executive officer Katrina Ponce-Enrile and Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Henry Rhoel Aguda all articulated this mission order from PBBM during our weekly Kapihan sa Manila Bay a week after the SONA.
“It was a wow moment for me when I heard the President mention the rocket launch at the SONA. It is now a declared policy,” Aguda enthused.
Gearing up for the target date blast-off, it was finally revealed to take place at the launching pad site put up inside the Cagayan Special Economic Zone and Freeport. This is located in the northeastern tip of Luzon, covering the entire municipality of Santa Ana and the offshore islands of Fuga, Barit and Mabbag in the municipality of Aparri in Cagayan Province.
Barring any last-minute hitches, the test launch of the demo rocket is set at six o’clock – sunset time – on Valentine’s Day, Aguda waxed romantic.
It notably coincides with the birth anniversary of the CEZA chief’s late father, former Senate president Juan Ponce-Enrile. Recognized as Cagayan’s pride, Enrile last served in government as PBBM’s presidential chief legal counsel before he died in November last year at age 101 years.
The upcoming rocket launch is under the Siklab program started by the PhilSA in 2022. The project is being jointly implemented under a public-private partnership (PPP) model involving the PhilSA, DICT and the CEZA, with private partners Ascend International Gateway Inc. and South Korea’s Perigee Aerospace Inc. Both PhilSA and CEZA are agencies attached to the Office of the President.
Under this Siklab program, 10 selected Filipino engineers, two of them women, are currently undergoing advanced technology transfer training at Perigee’s Blue Whale rocket platform. One of them is 31-year-old Renzo Wee, who now works at PhilSA as senior science research specialist. Wee disclosed the 10 of them first went to South Korea for the 10-week initial training last year. The 10 scholars will go back next week for further skills and technology training for another 10-week period in Daejeon, the headquarters of Perigee Aerospace.
This is to build up aerospace talents among young Filipinos, Perez cited. According to Perez, the PhilSA puts up scholarships for students in college and university degree programs in sciences and engineering. And soon, she added, Batangas State University and other state colleges and universities will follow in offering simulation training for analog astronauts.
From Google search, an analog astronaut is a person who performs spaceflight simulation and training while remaining on earth. They live and work in special enclosed habitats that mimic conditions on the moon or Mars to help space agencies study how isolation, communication delays and tight spaces affect human health and teamwork. Perez herself is a state scholar who, after graduating with a Physics degree from the University of the Philippines, took her post-doctoral fellowship at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center from 2010 to 2011.
She went on to lead the science teams behind the country’s first microsatellites (Diwata-1 and Diwata-2). Before the end of this year, she said, the MULA, or multispectral land assessment, satellite is set for launching into outer space via the American aerospace firm SpaceX in Vandenberg, California in April next year. The MULA satellite will replace Diwata-2 before it is decommissioned. The Diwata-2 satellite was launched in 2018.
As PhilSA systems engineer for the Siklab program, Wee disclosed the demonstration blast-off is slated to be the first liquid-fueled sounding rocket launch from Philippine soil. Wee described the deployment of a locally developed payload rocket weighs up to two kilograms and is estimated to soar to an altitude of at least five kilometers.
Enrile strongly took exception to skepticism and outright criticisms on PBBM’s special mention in his SONA of a rocket launch while most Filipinos suffer lack of efficient public transportation. “This initiative is not simply about launching rockets... The rocket may become the most visible symbol of this initiative, but it is not the initiative itself. The real story is everything that grows around it,” Enrile pointed out.
She believes it will establish an expansive economic and innovation ecosystem encompassing satellite integration, advanced manufacturing, research laboratories, testing facilities and specialized university programs in aerospace engineering, robotics, space law and artificial intelligence (AI).
For the DICT, Aguda underscored our country will be ahead of its ASEAN neighbors in becoming a major space launch pad in Southeast Asia. He cited the strategic geographic location of the Philippines near the equator will leverage our country to attract global satellite providers and launch companies.
Aguda explained the Philippine archipelago’s proximity to the equator gives the country a distinct competitive advantage. “When you are near the equator, you save on rocket fuel,” Aguda pointed out. This he gathered from his recent interaction with executives of global space-based satellite connectivity provider Starlink of Elon Musk.
Enrile concurred, citing Cagayan was chosen because of its strategic position not only for orbital fuel efficiency. “It is open sea boundaries via the Pacific Ocean for safe launch trajectories, and operational logistics hubs including the Cagayan North International Airport and Port Irene,” she added.
No wonder the usual area for falling Chinese rocket debris is always in Cagayan.