Between April 2 and 4, the countdown begins for the takeoff of the Falcon 9 rocket, from the Vandenberg Air Base of the SpaceX company, in California, United States, which carries inside the second satellite that Colombia will launch. orbit.
The Colombian Air Force is leading this project and it is the result of almost two decades of development for the country to have a space program, joining the exclusive club of nations that operate their own satellites.
Its protagonists will reveal the details of the process this Thursday, at 7:30 p.m., on the Institutional Channel, in a new broadcast of Find out about the Change, television program of the Presidency of the Republic.
SpaceX calls the mission ‘Transporter 7’ and consists of a shared flight to position fifty small microsatellites and nanosatellites for commercial and government clients in a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). One of those space artifacts is the FACSAT-2 “Chibiriquete”, as the Air Force called it.
The Colombian satellite, which arrives at the SpaceX facilities in March, will be put into orbit at an altitude of 500 kilometers. From that height, it will be able to monitor potential environmental risks and threats, detect illegal mining areas, exercise surveillance of the country’s airspace, energy, port and road infrastructure.
Greenhouse gas monitoring
FACSAT-2 “Chibiriquete” is twice as large as its predecessor (FACSAT-1) –which has been in orbit for 4 years and 3 months– and has a greater payload capacity; With this, it will carry a spectrometer that will allow the monitoring of greenhouse gases, thanks to a strategic agreement with Ecopetrol.
The spectrometer, an ARGUS 2000 from the Canadian company TOTH, has special software designed by Air Force technicians, with which it will be possible to characterize emission sources and generate strategies to reduce gases that contribute to global warming.
The images emitted by the satellite will be more precise thanks to the resolution of its camera, 5 meters per pixel, which will allow it to be used in cartography, topography and strategic intelligence applications.
Like the FACSAT-1, “Chibiriquete” was developed in association with the Danish company GomSpace A/S and has already passed the phases of assembly, internal integration, software programming, the external integration process, and functional and environmental tests.
Pre-launch logistics were agreed with the German company Exolaunch, which is in charge of transportation, POD integration, launcher integration, and insurance management. The process was coordinated from Berlin, Germany, by an Air Force team led by Lieutenant Colonel Sonia Ruth Rincón Urbina, General Carlos Silva, and Colonel Néstor Cortés.