UAE - Mubasher: The UAE Space Agency has launched a new AED 3 billion national investment and development fund for the space sector, The National Space Fund, the Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported.

Through the fund, new programmes will be developed to support international and national companies in enhancing space sector engineering, sciences, and research applications.

The Fund’s first project will be a constellation of advanced imaging satellites, deploying the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology to tackle better environmental and land usage monitoring, data collection, and analysis.

Sirb project will create highly detailed and complex radar images of land use, ice cover, surface changes, and characterisation.

The Minister of State for Public Education and Advanced Technology and Chairwoman of the UAE Space Agency, Sarah bint Yousef Al Amiri, said: "A long-term plan and programme for the development of the Emirates’ space sector is in place to create economic opportunities, new jobs and help to fund global partnerships and new leaders in technology, space sciences, and engineering here in the UAE."

Meanwhile, the Director General of the UAE Space Agency, Salem Al Qubaisi, commented: "The National Space Fund will encourage global partnerships to establish themselves here in the Emirates, providing new and vital technology platforms and development to answer the needs of the UAE Space Programme and other global customers for vital innovation and technologies that answer the needs and possibilities of today’s world."