AKIPRESS.COM - The first university satellite of Mongolia which is named after the Mongolian endangered Gobi bear -- Mazaalai -- was sent off into space in the United States on Sunday, Xinhua reported.

The launch took place at 5:50 am Ulaanbaator time on Sunday (2150 GMT Saturday) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, United States.

The Mongolian CubeSat is a component of the Birds 1 satellites, which also include four other CubeSats belonging to Japan, Nigeria, Ghana and Bangladesh. They were launched from the SpaceX Falcon9 Rocket.

The Mongolian CubeSat is designed, built and owned by a team of young scholars of the National University of Mongolia (NUM) in collaboration with young scholars and students from participating countries including Ghana, Japan, Bangladesh and Nigeria.

It is the first university satellite to be launched in Mongolia. The CubeSats will be launched and docked to the International Space Station where the satellites will be deployed into lower orbit during the last week of June 2017.

The Mazaalai satellite was supposed to be sent to space on June 2, then the flight was postponed due to rain. It's the second satellite of Mongolia after the Mongol Sat-1 was sent into space on April 19.