Lisbon, July 15, 2024 (Lusa) - The Portuguese company LusoSpace on Monday presented PoSAT-2, the first of a constellation of 12 microsatellites for monitoring maritime traffic. It was built entirely at its facilities in Lisbon and will be sent into space in October.
The executive director of LusoSpace, Ivo Yves Vieira, told Lusa that PoSAT-2 will allow for the receipt of data on ships' locations and a new communication system that will enable vessels in the middle of the ocean to receive warnings of bad weather or possible threats from pirates and send distress messages.
PoSAT-2, which cost around €1 million, will be sent into space aboard the Falcon 9 rocket from US company SpaceX and will be positioned in a low orbit, around 500 kilometres above the Earth, above the International Space Station, the astronauts' "home" and laboratory.
Ivo Yves Vieira, whose aerospace engineering company chose the name PoSAT-2 to pay "tribute" to PoSAT-1, the first Portuguese satellite launched into space in 1993, and "to the people who took it forward," said the first data is expected in November.
"I myself took part in PoSAT-1. It was thanks to PoSAT-1 that I entered the space industry. It was thanks to that satellite that I learnt a lot about space. PoSAT-2 has nothing similar to PoSAT-1, but it is the first satellite that LusoSpace, of which I am the founder, has produced and is going to launch. LusoSpace wouldn't exist if there hadn't been PoSAT-1," the CEO of LusoSpace said.
The microsatellite constellation will be completed in 2025 with the launch of the remaining 11 devices, involving the participation of other companies in the sector, and has a total cost of around €20 million, €10 million of which will be co-financed by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) within the framework of the "New Space Portugal Agenda", which "aims to transform the specialisation profile of the Portuguese space sector with new innovative, exportable and more technologically complex products and services".
According to previous statements by Ivo Yves Vieira, small satellites like these will be helpful for autonomous maritime navigation in the future.
If all goes according to plan, PoSAT-2 will be the third Portuguese satellite to be sent into space this year, after the ISTSat-1 nano-satellites last week and Aeros MH-1 in March, and the fourth satellite after the PoSAT-1 micro-satellite in 1993.
Physicist and engineer Carvalho Rodrigues, the "father" of the first Portuguese satellite, is expected to attend today's presentation session at LusoSpace's headquarters in Lisbon.
ER/ADB // ADB.
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