UAE will launch its first locally built satellite in 2017 following the successful launch of two DubaiSat satellites built in Seoul.

The new project was announced by HH Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, as he visited the Emirates Institute for Advanced Science and Technology (Eiast) yesterday, said a Gulf News report.

The KhalifaSat, named after President HH Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, will be the first such project in the Arab world, Shaikh Mohammad said.

The KhalifaSat will be the third after DubaiSat1 and DubaiSat2, which were built in Seoul, under a knowledge-sharing arrangement with the South Korean company Satrec.

A team of 45 Emirati engineers are working on building the KhalifaSat, which Shaikh Mohammad said catapults the Arab world into a new era of space industry, the report said.