President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan delivered remarks on a joint live broadcast by A Haber, ATV, A Para, and A News.
During the broadcast, President Erdoğan answered questions on several topics, including his video conference with Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk and whether they agreed on new project or not.
In response he stated, "Satellites and space technologies are technologies that require qualified expertise and specific infrastructure".
"In recent years, we have taken important steps towards training qualified human resources and establishing infrastructure for the satellite and space ecosystem in Turkey," Erdoğan said, noting that they are taking these steps through Türksat.
"Since the 3rd generation Türksat 3A satellite was commissioned in 2008, training and technology transfer programs have been implemented to train qualified human resources throughout the 4th and 5th generation satellite projects," he said.
Erdoğan also stated that the team of technical experts trained throughout these projects, have been playing major role in forming Turkey’s satellite and space ecosystem, as well as training a new generation of human resources, besides having significant contribution to new satellite projects such as the Türksat 6A, which is currently under construction.
"Signification investments had also been made to establish an infrastructure for the integration and testing of satellite systems and these investments manifested in the Space Systems Integration and Test Center (SSITC), which was inaugurated in 2015," he added.
The center was built in cooperation between the Presidency of Turkish Defence Industries and Türksat.
"The testing and production processes of both Türksat 6A and İMECE satellites are being carried out by the trained human resources in SSITC," Erdoğan underlined.
"Türksat 6A satellite will be sent into space in 2023 onboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket," he stated and added that it is being built 100% domestically.
Erdoğan finally said that thanks to these efforts foreign dependency in this area will decrease and will also enable Turkey to realize exports in this field.