‘Mazaalai’, Mongolia’s first satellite of, began its operations in space last week, offering high resolution images of the Earth from an altitude of 400 kilometers; it also broadcasted the country’s national anthem.

The spacecraft will perform experiments such as locating the position using a reverse GPS method with the help of seven international land stations of the Birds project, determine the air density, and investigate cosmic radiation in low Earth orbit.

Ya.Tumurbaatar, dean of the National University of Mongolia, said that by receiving real-time high-resolution images from space, natural disasters such as forest fires, snow, drought, storms, rain and floods could be prevented.

The satellite is named after the Mongolian name for the rare Gobi bear.