FASat-Alfa was to become the first

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

an satellite, and was constructed under a Technology Transfer Program between the

Chilean Air Force "With full speed to the stars" , colours = Indigo White , colours_label = , march = Alte Kameraden , mascot = , anniversaries = 21 March ...

(FACH) and

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, or SSTL, is a company involved in the manufacture and operation of small satellites. A spin-off company of the University of Surrey, it is presently wholly owned by Airbus Defence and Space. The company began ou ...

(SSTL) of the United Kingdom. The primary goal of the Program was to obtain for Chile the basic scientific and technological experience required to continue with more advanced steps. The purposes of the FASat-Alfa mission are to create a group of engineers with aerospace experience, to have the first Chilean satellite in orbit, and to install and operate the Mission Control Station (ECM-Santiago) in Chile. There were two satellites: FASat-Alfa and FASat-Bravo. The Alfa satellite was launched on 31 August 1995 on TSYCLON from

Plesetsk Plesetsk (russian: Плесе́цк) is an urban locality (a work settlement) and the administrative center of Plesetsky District, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, situated about northeast of Moscow and south of Arkhangelsk. Municipally, it is ...

. Its orbit was intended to be 682 x 651 km, inclined at 82.53 degrees; however, the spacecraft failed to separate from the failed Ukrainian satellite it was attached to. The Bravo satellite was launched on 10 July 1998, on TSYCLON from Baikonur. Its intended orbit was 682 x 651 km, inclined at 82.53 degrees. It was to operate 13,000 orbits until 2002.

Characteristics

*Bus: SSTL microbus, fifth generation *Owner: Fuerza Aérea De Chile (Air Force), Chile *Payloads: Ozone Monitoring Experiment, Remote sensing, Data Transfer Experiment, Advanced Digital Signal Processing Payload, Orbital Positioning via GPS, Educational support

External links

Official FASat-Alfa project page (In spanish, with some articles in english)
* Spanish Wikipedia article Satellites orbiting Earth Satellites of Chile Spacecraft launched in 1995 First artificial satellites of a country {{spacecraft-stub