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Thanks to an alliance between the Colombian Air Force, the Industrial University of Santander (UIS), the Universidad del Valle, the Sergio Arboleda University and the Military School of Aviation, institutions that will have funding from the Ministry of Sciences (Minciencias) for the initial phase, in five years Colombia could have a satellite instrument of its own manufacture. (You may be interested: ‘I wish I had been wrong in my prediction about hurricanes’)
The project is part of the initiative ‘Mission analysis and feasibility study for a three-unit cubesat-type satellite mission’, whose objective is to design a satellite platform that will carry a multispectral camera as payload, capable of observing the territory in the visible range and near infrared and, in addition, perform spectrum analysis, that is, of identify the ‘fingerprint of light’ that each object reflects.
The team in charge of the development of the space instrument.
Thus, it is intended to contribute to the monitoring and surveillance of the territory, to the care of the environment and to the prevention and attention of natural disasters.
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This instrument, which began to be conceived two years ago, would be designed and built by the aforementioned institutions, which already have 600 million pesos, the product of a call for research by the Ministry of Science, to advance the first, and part of second, five-phase.
According to Julián Rodríguez Ferreira, academic coordinator of the UIS electronic engineering program, and co-author of the project, In the first stage, the design of the satellite mission will be advanced, that is, its scientific objective will be defined, which, in this case, will be oriented to monitoring activities such as agriculture and the surveillance of problems such as deforestation and vulnerable human settlements due to their proximity to water basins, in which avalanches and other emergencies could occur.
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Likewise, progress will be made in defining technical requirements, such as the type of satellite that the camera will carry, its orbit and the other instruments of the mission.
We will design the optical architecture ourselves, that is, the type and arrangement of the lenses, mirrors and other optical and electronic components of the prototype.
In parallel, the team will work on the first steps of the camera’s development, starting with its design and the construction of a laboratory prototype capable of breaking down light in its spectrum. which would allow you not only to identify the shape of the objects, but also their composition. This would be useful for differentiating landforms and different terrain components such as land, trees, rocks, water, and land.
“We will design the optical architecture ourselves, that is, the type and arrangement of the lenses, mirrors and other optical and electronic components of the prototype. The only thing we would not develop would be the camera’s detector, as this implies the use of a technology that we do not yet have, ”says Rodríguez.
“The development of the prototype is essential to validate our design and understand the operation of the camera under controlled conditions, since it must be capable of operating in space, something that, at an engineering level, is complex, due to the thermal operating conditions. and vacuum. The next phase will be to get the resources to build and assemble the satellite that it can already be launched into space, ”says Rodríguez.
Space sovereignty
The biggest Sonia Rincón, head of the Center for Research in Aerospace Technologies (Citae), of the FAC, and co-author of the project, she explains that the intention will be to use the ‘MISC-3’ satellite bus, an engineering model that the FAC already has, to integrate the laboratory payload prototype.
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“For the FAC it is important to participate in projects like this one because that way we can leverage national capacities for remote monitoring of the territory and, in this way, follow up on activities such as agriculture. This, in a country like Colombia has an additional value, due to the coexistence of licit crops such as coffee, rice and corn, with illicit crops, such as coca ”, says Rincón.
And he continues: “We hope that, in the future, we can individualize the application of this type of device, not only to the multiple needs of the country in terms of defense and security, but also at a scientific level, and thus obtain different research products. In this work, it will be essential to have the collaboration of different institutions with which we can promote our spatial sovereignty”.
The five-year duration of the project includes everything from the design of the mission to the eventual launching of the satellite, the launch of which would be contracted with one of the public and private space agencies that currently provide this type of service. According to Rodríguez, the total cost of the program would be between 2 and 3 million dollars.
If that result is achieved, the satellite would become the third Colombian to go into space. The first was Libertad-1, developed by Sergio Arboleda University and launched in orbit in November 2007. That launch took place from the famous Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The second was Facsat-1, launched on November 28, 2018 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, in India, and which is operated and monitored from the FAC’s Military Aviation School.
NICOLÁS BUSTAMANTE HERNÁNDEZ
Science Writer@ScienceNico
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