INPE acquires components for the Amazon-1 Satellite


The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) is acquiring new components for the Amazon-1.With its launching foreseen for 2011, will be the first Earth Observation Satellite developed in Brazil and the first one to make use of Multimission Platform (PMM).

Together, both Satellites Amazon-1 and CBERS-3 and 4 will get a complete Earth covering in less than 5 days, making Brazil independent to getting the images in medium resolution and eliminating the risk of foreigner satellites discontinuing the stock of this kind of image. Nowadays for instance, the American satellite Landsat-5, that is used in the Amazon deforestation studies, remains more than 22 years in the space and already presents clear degradation signals.

The Amazon -1 is made upon a national platform design, called PMM that will also be used in other satellites offered by the Brazilian Space Program: the scientific satellite Lattes-1, the MAPSAR Earth Observation radar, and the meteorological satellite of precipitation measures.

For developing the PMM, INPE hired from the national industry, the telecommunication subsystems, structures, energy and propulsion, those whose are called flight models shall be delivered in the middle of 2010, to start up the phase of integration and tests of the first satellite, the Amazon-1.

In parallel, INPE has been acquiring components for the satellite payload, that includes transmission and records on board equipments, also an optical camera (called AWFI), operating in the visible and near infrared band, with swath width of 750 km and spatial resolution of 40m.

Besides that, an agreement signed between Brazil, represented by INPE, and the United Kingdom by Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), will permit to include in the Amazon-1 the English Camera RALCAM-3, with resolution order of 10m, which will complement the image collected by AWFI.

In the end of 2008, INPE signed contracts for the acquisition of two more components of the Amazon-1: the AWFI Camera, hired from the national industry, and the system control and on board computation, object of a cooperation between the Brazilian Space Agency, AEB, and the Argentine Space Agency, CONAE, hired out by the Argentine company INVAP.

For 2009, INPE expects to finish the rest of the equipments acquisition for the Amazon-1 payload, to solve the interface issues with the English camera RALCAM-3, and to work on the support systems and on the integration tests for the satellite. Simultaneously, they expect to start up the hiring regarding the second PMM that shall make up the Lattes-1 satellite.

Source SpaceFellowship

EARSC
Author: EARSC



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