On April 2nd, Costa Rica will witness a historic milestone in the area of technology: the first Costa Rican satellite to travel to space. The launch will take place with the cooperation of the Japanese Agency of Aerospace Exploration known as Jaxa, which will include it in one of its missions to the International Space Station.
The satellite will be launched from Cape Canaveral, on board the Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX (…), and for us it is a great honor to announce that we are ready to make history very soon,”
said Carlos Alvarado, president of the Central American Association of Aeronautics and Space (ACAE).
The satellite was subjected to certain tests at the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan, simulated extreme flight conditions and put into orbit.
The CubeSAT satellite will be used in the communication between an experimental station in San Carlos and the monitoring station in the Central Campus of TEC, in Cartago. The objective is to measure the level of tree growth and thereby establish an approximation of the carbon fixation rate of Costa Rican forests.
The housing was built by the National Learning Institute (INA), the satellite systems were developed and tested in the facilities of SETEC-Lab and the assembly was in charge of TEC engineers.
The launch will be in charge of the US company SpaceX, which will do so with the famous Falcon 9 rocket. This means that Costa Ricans will be able to watch the takeoff live, as SpaceX broadcasts all its launches in YouTube.