Scientific Satellites

Garatéa-L

Brazil plans to launch a nanosatellite into Lunar orbit before 2020 to study the effects of the microgravity environment on different life forms. It will become the first Brazilian space probe to venture outside Erath’s orbit. The project, named Garatéa-L, is being developed by a team of University of São Paulo scientists with help from the European Space Agency and the UK Space Agency. The nanosatellite will be launched by an Indian PSLV-C11 rocket, which is also slated to send an additional four such satellites to the Moon.

Douglas Galante, a researcher at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS) in Campinas and a coordinator of the Garatéa-L project, said that it aims to conduct a series of astrobiological experiments and promote the spread of scientific knowledge in his country. “We plan to launch in late 2019, — early 2020 to mark fifty years since the launch of Apollo 11. We are going to carry out three major scientific experiments in astrobiology, space medicine and one to make a milt-zone imaging of the lunar surface”.

The scientists want to gauge the impact of deep space, high radiation, low gravity and extreme temperature fluctuations on extremophiles — organisms that thrive in physically or geochemically extreme conditions that are detrimental to most life on Earth. “This will not only enable us to determine the limits of life but it will also help us to develop better conditions for life in our solar system. What we are trying to determine is how radiation, zero gravity and extreme temperature fluctuations impact biological life. We need to experiment on living organisms to understand how habitable our Universe really is,” he added.

The team is getting help from other Brazilian universities and also from colleagues at the organization EOS in the United States, which coordinates cooperation with NASA and universities. “They have previously worked on similar projects and are now helping with our research,” Galante said. The project was named Garatéa, which in the Tupi-Guarani language means “looking for lives,” because its main objective is to study the effects of various colonies of living microorganisms, molecules and human cells that will be on board the satellite and exposed to radiation for several months.

Scientific Applications Satellite SACI-1

The SACI-1 - Scientific Applications Satellite developed at INPE was the first of a series of Low Earth Orbit microsatellites. The spacecraft was launched on October 14, 1999 in a piggyback configuration having the CBERS satellite (China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite) as a co-passenger in the Chinese Long-March IV launcher.

The payload of SACI-1 is composed of four scientific experiments namely: ORCAS, an investigation of the anomalous cosmic radiation fluxes; FOTSAT, an airglow photometer to measure the terrestrial airglow emissions; PLASMEX, a study of the plasma bubbles evolution and MAGNEX, a research of the geomagnetic field effect on charged particles.

The SACI-1 bus is composed of six subsystems: a modular structure, a power conditioning unit, a S-Band communications, an active attitude control, an on-board transputer-based parallel computer and a passive thermal control. The driving factors being adopted throughout the design phases of SACI-1 are: development of a versatile bus supporting multiple missions, cost reduction with recurrent mission, design time acceleration, mission simplification, decentralized development.

• total mass 60 kg;
• payload mass 28 kg;
• overall dimensions are 600 x 400 x 400 mm;
• conception is modular, with simple technical solutions;
• thermal control is passive;
• development of the micro-satellite shall be done in less than 28 months;
• total cost, including bus and scientific payloads, shall be less than US$ 4.6 million;
• satellite expected lifetime is of 18 months;
• payload power requirement is 30 W;
• satellite is spin-stabilized;
• pointing accuracy is 1 degree.