Serbia develop first satellite, with China's help

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]For almost a century, astronomers at the Belgrade Observatory have explored the universe through this telescope.

[00:00:07]Now, with a technological quantum leap, scientists of this observatory working on Serbia's first nano-satellite mission.

[00:00:16]Chinese partners are providing technical expertise, launch support, and the satellite platform itself. One of its primary tasks will be monitoring x-ray radiation from the sun.

[00:00:28]>> Uh I will show you quickly um on this uh spectrometer. Here we have a preamplifier. This is this part, but this is the detector for x-ray. This is extremely sensitive part of the of the instrument and should not be uh touched by hand and so on.

[00:00:47]>> Researchers also plan to capture the first image of Serbia taken from a Serbian satellite in orbit.

[00:00:54]The original plan was to use a satellite built from three standard CubeSat units.

[00:00:59]>> But after our collaboration with uh Chinese uh colleagues, we dis- discussed about it to have eight units uh uh uh CubeSat. So, it is uh how to say uh big step to form a space agency Serbia and also uh to uh very important to use experience that China has.

[00:01:25]>> The launch is planned for the end of 2027.

[00:01:28]Projects like Morava are attracting growing attention in Serbia, not only within the scientific community, but also among technology startups and students who increasingly see the space sector as a future development opportunity, not just for them, but for the entire country.

[00:01:46]Serbian officials say the mission could become the nucleus for a domestic space-oriented industry with future plans for a ground communication and satellite control center.

[00:01:58]>> Chinese government decided to help us to get the knowledge that we needed so that we can develop our own space program and space projects.

[00:02:05]>> That space is not reserved only for the large countries and Chinese side when they um offered us a collaboration, they told us that any country that has a space ambitions can be part of that large family.

[00:02:23]>> With Mosaic, Serbian scientists could soon leave century-old stargazing tools behind.

[00:02:30]Aljosa Milenkovic, CGTN, Belgrade.