Bahrain-UAE satellite Light-1 will be in orbit for 6 months | THE DAILY TRIBUNE | KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN

Bahrain-UAE satellite Light-1 will be in orbit for 6 months | THE DAILY TRIBUNE | KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN

The Bahrain-UAE joint nanosatellite Light-1 will be in orbit for the next six months, according to a leading UAE Space Agency official. Light-1 was successfully deployed from the Japanese Experiment Module (KIBO) into orbit on February 3 under the supervision of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. It took five minutes to activate the launch sequence after the International Space Station received clearance from a command team on Earth. In an exclusive interaction with The Daily Tribune, Heyam Al Blooshi, Acting Head of Space Standards Quality Department at UAE Space Agency, said the CubeSat will be in orbit for the next six months. “It will send data to the Earth and also receive commands from our ground control team,” she said. “Light-1 will start the region’s first scientific mission to monitor and study terrestrial gamma-ray flashes from lightning storms and cumulus clouds.” According to scientists, there are two known kinds of gamma-ray phenomena associated with thunderclouds: gamma-ray glows weak emissions which last about a minute, and shortlived terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs), which occur as lightning strikes and are much more intense than gamma-ray glows. “Both occur in regions of thunderclouds sandwiched between layers of varying charge. The charged regions accelerate electrons