WATCH: Launch of Diwata-1 micro satellite

Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

MANILA - Diwata-1, the Philippines' first micro satellite built and designed by Filipino scientists, is set for launch Wednesday, March 23.

The micro satellite was developed and assembled by nine Filipino scientists in partnership with the Tohoku University and Hokkaido University of Japan.

NASA's Orbital ATK Commercial Resupply Services Flight 6 (OA-6) Cygnus spacecraft will bring the microsatellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, USA between 11:00 and 11:35 a.m., Manila time.

(LOOK: 'Diwata-1,' the Philippines' first satellite)

DIWATA-1 will gather “on-demand and real-time status of the country’s environment, particularly for applications such as disaster risk management, land-use, and aquatic resource assessment and monitoring,” according to the Department of Science and Technology.

It is equipped with a high precision telescope (HPT) for high resolution imaging, which could be used for assessment of the extent of damage during disasters. It also has a spaceborne multispectral imager (SMI) with LCTF for monitoring bodies of water and vegetation and a wide field camera (WFC) for observing large-scale weather patterns.

Once in space, Diwata-1 is expected "to traverse a Low-Earth Orbit—400 to 420 kilometers from the ground—taking images of the Philippines during its projected two daytime passes."

The Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute of the University of the Philippines Diliman will organize a viewing session for the rocket launch.

The public can watch a NASA livestream of the launch at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ or https://www.youtube.com/user/NASAtelevision.