Chile's history in space dates back several decades and includes several milestones, including the launch of three different satellites. Three years ago, the creation of the National Satellite System (SNSat) was announced, which contemplates a constellation of 10 satellites to replace the FaSat-Charlie that is currently in orbit.
They measure 10x10x30 cm and weigh no more than 3 kilos. They are SUCHAI-2, SUCHAI-3 and PlantSat, the three new nanosatellites of the Space Program of the University of Chile, which take off aboard the Falcon-9 rocket of the South African Elon Musk's company, SpaceX, from Cape Canaveral (United States), with the mission of carrying out biological, information and communication systems and space physics experiments.
This is a new milestone in Chile's space exploration, a subject that is not alien to our country. Although not many know it, Chile's relationship with space begins in 1959, a decade before Neil Armstrong pronounced his famous words on the lunar surface "this is a small step for man, but a giant leap for mankind". It was in that year that NASA installed one of the world's first satellite tracking stations in the city of Antofagasta, in northern Chile, with the aim of supporting the first missions of the probes sent by the United States into space.
Two decades later, in 1980, the Space Affairs Committee was created, one of the first bodies that sought to regulate this matter with public policies. Over the years, the organization changed, and last March 15, the Official Gazette published the creation of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Space Matters, starting the new space governance for Chile, which includes the participation of 5 ministries (Science, Foreign Affairs, Defense, Defense, Interior, National Assets) and a sub-secretariat (Telecommunications).
Satellite scanning
Although SUCHAI-2, SUCHAI-3 and PlantSat are among the most advanced nanosatellites that have been developed in our country, they are not the only missions of their type that have emerged from Chile. In 1994, the Chilean Air Force designed a program that included the launch of two microsatellites. The first was FaSat-Alfa (1995), which failed to undock from the Ukrainian satellite it was traveling on. Three years later the FaSat-Bravo was launched from Kazakhstan, whose objective was to carry out geographic, climatic and economic resource studies of the country, which ceased operations in 2001, after obtaining more than 1,000 photographs.
At the beginning of the last decade, FaSat-Charlie (2011) was launched, whose mission was earth observation. Finally, in June 2017, the first artificial satellite designed and developed locally in Chile was launched from India, SUCHAI-1 (Satellite of the University of Chile for Aerospace Investigation): the first nanosatellite developed by the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the University of Chile, laying the foundations for the Space Program of that house of studies, and which continues to orbit the Earth today.
In 2019, the creation of the National Satellite System (SNSat) was announced, which includes 10 satellites that will form a national satellite constellation and will replace the FaSat-Charlie satellite, currently in orbit and which completed its useful life 5 years ago. Within this system, the construction of 3 mini-satellites of about 100 kilos and 7 micro-satellites of up to 20 kilos are considered for 2025. The first three minisatellites (Fasat Delta, Fasat Echo 1 and Fasat Echo 2) will be launched in the coming years by Elon Musk's company. Meanwhile, the seven microsatellites will be built in Chile, in conjunction with Chilean universities, and will be launched between 2023 and 2025.
In addition, this year the National Space Center (CEN) is scheduled to be inaugurated in the Cerrillos district (Santiago), which will have four areas: a laboratory for manufacturing satellites and payloads; a space mission control center; a geospatial information analysis and processing center; and a Center for Entrepreneurship and Space Innovation.
For the operation of this center, three monitoring stations will be set up in Antofagasta, Santiago and Punta Arenas to control the satellites of the national constellation, in addition to downloading images in real time.