Türkiye’s 1st homegrown satellite completes 3rd ignition in journey towards orbit

By Esra Tekin

ISTANBUL (AA) – Turksat 6A, Türkiye’s first homegrown communications satellite, has successfully completed the third ignition process of its space journey towards its stable orbit, the country’s Transportation and Infrastructure Minister announced on Sunday.

"Today, we successfully completed the 3rd ignition process, which lasted 7 minutes. TURKSAT 6A continues its historic journey and progresses towards its orbit,” Abdulkadir Uraloglu said on X.

Turksat 6A will have its fourth ignition process in its orbital journey on Tuesday, according to Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacir.

Turksat 6A, Türkiye’s first homegrown communications satellite, was launched last week into space as the result of 10 years of work, boosting the number of Türkiye’s active satellites to nine.

After successfully passing all tests, Turksat 6A was launched into space by Space X’s Falcon 9 rocket last Monday.

With the experience of the Turkish engineers who produced Turksat 6A, Türkiye became one of the few countries capable of producing communication satellites, and eventually looks to become a satellite exporter.

Turksat 1C, the successor of the first communications satellite Turksat 1B, was launched in 1996, followed by Turksat 2A in 2001, Turksat 3A in 2008, Turksat 4A in 2014, Turksat 4B in 2015, and Turksats 5A and 5B in 2021.​​​​​​​