INPE Receives the Argentinean Satellite

Hello reader!

It follows one communicates published in english on the day (28/06) in the website of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) announcing that the institute received the satellite argentinian SAC-D for tests before his launch to the space.

Duda Falcão

INPE Receives the Argentinean Satellite

June 28, 2010

The environmental along with the mass property measures tests required for the Argentinean SAC-D satellite launching, will be performed by the Testing and Integration Laboratory (LIT) of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The satellite carries an instrument aboard the Aquarius, an innovative equipment to monitor the oceanic salinity developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA, the U.S. space agency, in addition to other Argentine, French, and Italian scientific experiments.

Given the size and weight of the equipments, the transportation from Argentina to Brazil was in charge of two flights of C-17 Globemaster aircraft, from U.S. Air Force, that was hired by NASA for this operation specifically.

The SAC-D took three days - from Saturday until Monday (28 / 6) – to have all their equipment and payload be transported from Sao Jose dos Campos airport to INPE. It took seven trucks - four on the first day and three in the latest operation, mostly was carried out during the night so that the transportation did not interfere in the day traffic or rush hours. It was also used a 70-ton crane and other support trucks, besides four patrol cars.

The equipment entrance operation in the country and its transportation to INPE counted on the Infraero, Internal Revenue Service, Federal Agent, São José dos Campos City Hall, Department of Aerospace Science and Technology (DCTA), Itamaraty, the United States Embassy and Consulate, Comisión Nacional de Activitidades Espacialies (CONAE), Brazilian Space Agency (AEB), NASA, Air Mobility Command, U.S. Air Force, and the Science Foundation, Space Technology Applications (FUNCATE) support.

The activities developed at LIT/INPE will take about eight months and during this time, about one hundred technicians and scientists of countries who worked on the development and qualification of the satellite project will be working on it.

The LIT/INPE is the only laboratory of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere able to perform assembly, integration and testing activities of satellites and their subsystems. Being able to offer the "full array of space testing" was crucial for Brazil to be chosen to test the Argentinean satellite developed in cooperation with the United States.

Internal procedures LIT/INPE, including security, have been refined to fit the same NASA protocols followed in the JPL, which have been audited and approved by representatives of the U.S. space agency itself.

They will make electromagnetic compatibility interference tests, vibration, vibro-acoustic, shock of separation, thermal vacuum, besides the satellite mass properties measures. The inability to make any repair in orbit becomes the simulation on Earth necessary of all conditions that the satellite will face since its launching until the end of its lifetime in space.

In May INPE received the solar panels for the satellite energy provision, and the tests are about to be completed.

The completion of these tests in Brazil is a result of an agreement between the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) along with the Comisión Nacional de Espaciales Activities (CONAE) of Argentina.

Source: WebSite of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE)