The rocket also carried the STORK-7 observation satellite created by SatRev, a company based in the southwestern Polish city of Wrocław.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in the United States.
"Intuition-1 is a satellite with a hyperspectral, i.e. optical, instrument used to observe the Earth," according to the naukawpolsce.pl popular science website. "Its task is to map the Earth's surface in order to perform programmed functions - like finding macroelements in the soil and testing the soil PH. Thanks to the solutions used and a high-power computer, all necessary calculations will be performed in space, on board the satellite. Analysis of the collected data already in orbit means much lower operating costs."
Meanwhile, the STORK-7 satellite is equipped with several dozen perovskite solar cells from another Polish company, Saule Technologies.
Grzegorz Zwoliński, the head of SatRev, said that the aim of the mission is to examine "the work of perovskites in space" and "find out whether they are as effective an energy transmitter as on Earth."
This innovative photovoltaic solution makes it possible to generate energy from both sunlight and artificial light, providing a wide range of applications, the company says.
Saule Technologies is the owner of the world's first perovskite cell production line, located in Poland's Wrocław, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
(mm/gs)
Source: PAP, naukawpolsce.pl, gazeta.pl, wnp.pl
Click on the audio player above to listen to a report by Radio Poland's Agnieszka Bielawska.
