The Central American Aeronautics and Space Administration (ACAE) has announced that the first Central American satellite, built in Costa Rica, will be launched into space in 2016.
Developed over three years, the miniature satellite or picosatellite, which will weigh less than 10kg, will gather and relay daily data on carbon dioxide (CO2) in order to assess the effects of climate change.
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Data will be transmitted to the monitoring bases in tropical forests at the Santa Rosa National Park in north-western province of Guanacaste, Costa Rica.
The information will then be sent to another base station at labs managed by the Technological Institute of Costa Rica (ITCR) for analysis and processing.
As Costa Rica does not have launch infrastructure, takeoff is expected to happen outside the country. ACAE president Carlos Alvarado was quoted by ticotimes.ne as saying that it was a historic event for Costa Rica.
"It is a message to the world that this country is still thinking big," Alvarado said. "This project will return our people the ability to dream.
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By GlobalData"In order to launch the picosatellite, we could either hire a private service or sign a co-operation agreement with a space agency. We already have held conversations with South Korea and Nasa."
