Malaysian-made rockets in 15 years

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians building their own satellite or rocket in their garage?

This will be possible in the future as the National Space Agency is intensifying efforts to develop its capacity in satellite technology and teaching the skills to youths.

"It can happen if people at that time reach a certain level of technical expertise as well as have a desire to do something different," said its director-general Datuk Dr Mazlan Othman in a public lecture at the Academy of Sciences Malaysia yesterday.

The way to achieve that level, she said, was to expose schoolchildren and university students to satellite and rocket-building.

"Hopefully, in the next 15 to 20 years, the idea will not be so alien to them, as they would have touched or even built a satellite while studying," she said.

The National Space Agency has started going to schools and universities to raise awareness and to help develop certain skills among the children and undergraduates.

Mazlan added that it was not difficult to build satellites. "Only the sophisticated satellite needs to be built in a sophisticated place." She said the agency planned to develop a centre to build satellites locally.

"We must provide jobs for the best brains in Malaysia to stay in the country so as to create a 'brain retention' of these space experts," she said.

Also present at the public lecture, which was entitled "Space: Its Value Proposition for Malaysian Security, Enterprise and Science", were Malaysia's first astronaut Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor Sheikh Mustapha and Academy of Sciences of Malaysia honorary treasurer Datuk Ahmad Zaidee Laidin.