Alsat-1, the first satellite launched in the international Disaster Monitoring Constellation led by SSTL, has finally completed its mission for the
Algerian Space Agency (ASAL) having exceeded its original 5-year design lifetime by 50% to a remarkable 7 years and 9 months.
Launched in November 2002 into a 700km sun-synchronous orbit on board a Kosmos 3-M rocket from the
Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northern Russia, Alsat-1 was Algeria's first national satellite - as well as being the first Disaster Monitoring Constellation satellite, it was also the first SSTL spacecraft to carry SSTL's newly developed Slim 6 Line Scan Imager payload.