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The artifact will provide key data for agricultural production and emergency management.
Argentina's observation satellite SAOCOM 1B Sunday was launched from Cape Cañaveral (Florida) aboard a Falcon 9 rocket owned by the enterprise Space-X.
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The satellite, built entirely in Argentina, was stabilized in its orbit while waiting to deploy its 35 square meter radar antenna. This process will be completed 24 hours after its launch.
Argentina´s President Alberto Fernandez praised the SAOCOM 1B satellite’s importance and said that “it will provide key data for agricultural production and emergency management. Science and technology are at the service of Argentina's development."
"Thank you all. I am very happy and amazed because Argentina is one of those ten countries that have been able to orbit their own satellites. I have always said that the wealth of societies lies in the development of education, knowledge, and technology,” he added.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the SAOCOM 1B satellite for CONAE Argentina space agency on 30 August 2020 After releasing SAOCOM 1B around 14 minutes into the mission, the Falcon 9 deployed two smaller satellites named GNOMES 1 and Tyvak 0172 about an hour after liftoff.SpaceX pic.twitter.com/5QwrXd2LPv
— NASA And SpaceX (@AndSpacex) August 31, 2020
The idea of building the SAOCOM 1B satellite was conceived 18 years ago, during the former President Nestor Kirchner’s term, and the construction process took eight years.
Although it was supposed to be launched earlier this year, it had to be rescheduled three times, due to the COVID-19 and technical and meteorological issues, respectively.
The SAOCOM Mission takes complex Earth observation technology into space, which represents a significant improvement over conventional optical sensors.
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