Singapore may be a small tropical city-state without a spaceport or rocket-building capabilities, but it is placing renewed focus on space, says Professor Erick Lansard from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at NTU Singapore.

Writing in a commentary, Prof Lansard noted that the establishment of the National Space Agency of Singapore (NSAS), announced in February, marks a pivotal moment in the country's ambitions in this field.

One reason is Singapore's geographical advantage. Sitting almost exactly on the equator places the country in a unique position to monitor climate change in the tropics, where sea-level rise and extreme rainfall are intensifying.

Near-equatorial orbits allow satellites to pass over the same regions more frequently than those in mid-latitude systems, enabling high revisit rates that are important for monitoring fast-changing tropical environments.

This capability can strengthen flood nowcasting, rainfall estimation and tropical storm tracking. Satellites can also help verify carbon credits by monitoring forests and coastal ecosystems, improve maritime and air traffic management, support food security monitoring and provide rapid damage assessments after natural disasters.

Singapore has already built up strong experience in this area. The VELOX-CI tropical climate satellite, developed by NTU, demonstrated that compact and cost-effective platforms can generate reliable operational data in orbit. Researchers from the Earth Observatory of Singapore have used such data to better understand regional atmospheric and climate processes.

NTU is also continuing to develop new space technologies. Through the recently awarded Space Access Programme, the university is developing and testing an artificial intelligence module on a nanosatellite to process data directly in orbit, enabling faster insights and more efficient data use.

Singapore's space ecosystem also includes collaborations with international partners and local deep-tech spin-offs. For example, NTU has worked with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to test technologies in orbit, while spin-off company Zero Error Systems has developed radiation-tolerant electronics designed for space environments.

According to Prof Lansard, smaller economies do not need launch capability to participate meaningfully in the space sector. Countries can contribute through specialised technologies, payload design, data applications and international collaboration.

Prof Lansard's full commentary in The Straits Times here.