Egypt, Italy agree to build Desert Sat

Within the framework of President Hosni Mubarak's current visit to Italy, Egypt and Italy Monday will sign a cooperation agreement on building and launching a satellite named "Desert Sat," sources at the Italian embassy said on Sunday.

The Italian Space Agency and the National Remote-Sensing and Astronautics Authority held negotiations in this respect with the support of the Italian embassy.

The multi-purpose "Desert Sat" will, among other things, carry out missions on preserving agriculture and water resources and monitoring the erosion of Mediterranean sea coasts and the phenomenon of desertification in delta, Egypt.

The programme, pertaining to the manufacturing of this satellite, will be implemented in four stages; training Egyptian experts, designing through know-how transfer, building and finally launching of the satellite.

Establishing a ground station to receive the pictures beamed by the satellite will complete the program.