The history of Philippine space development is now routinely framed around a single inflection point: April 27, 2016. At 8:44 p.m. Philippine time, a compact, 50-kilogram microsatellite no larger than a balikbayan box was released into orbit from the Japanese Kibo module of the International Space Station. That satellite, Diwata-1, marked the country’s formal entry into the space age as a builder of its own spacecraft.