Brazil’s First Homemade Satellite Will Put Extra Eye on Diminishing Amazonian Forests | Science

By Sofia MoutinhoFeb. 26, 2021 at 1:45 p.m.

The fate of Brazil’s satellite program – and the country’s ability to monitor the disappearance of the Amazon rainforest – will be decided in 17 minutes and 30 seconds on Sunday. This is the time it will take to launch Amazonia-1, the first satellite fully developed by the country. If the mission goes well, Brazil will join some twenty countries that have managed the entire chain of design, production and operation of a satellite. Amazonia-1 will give researchers more frequent updates on deforestation and agricultural activity in the world’s largest tropical rainforest. But other challenges lie ahead, as Brazilian scientists face growing cuts in research funding and a political division over the country’s space program.

The satellite represents “an important milestone for Brazil,” says Adenilson Silva, an engineer at the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) who is leading the mission and will oversee the launch at the Indian Space Center on the island of Sriharikota. Development of the satellite, which began in 2008, involved more than a dozen Brazilian companies and an investment of 360 million reals ($ 60 million) – about a sixth of what it would cost to import ready-made material, says Silva. Amazonia-1 is the first of three Amazon surveillance satellites that INPE aims to build with the same manufacturing platform.

The new satellite is a 2.5 meter long metallic cuboid weighing 640 kilograms. It is loaded with 6 kilometers of cables and three wide-angle cameras capable of detecting any area of ​​deforestation larger than four football fields. A planned launch in 2018 was postponed due to a lack of funding and delays in the delivery of key components by collaborating companies.

Amazonia-1 also carries the added weight of Brazil’s dire history with satellite launches. In 2003, a satellite exploded during the launch of the Brazilian base in Alcântara, killing 21 people. The base has not launched a satellite since; although it is now operational, it is not equipped for satellites as large as the Amazon-1. At the Indian base, INPE scientists indulged in their superstitions ahead of the new launch: Silva participated in a traditional Hindu ceremony, cracking a coconut in front of the equipment as a blessing for safe travel before that it is transported to the launch pad.

If it survives the launch, the new satellite will orbit 752 kilometers above Earth to monitor a tropical forest currently undergoing record clearcutting and burning, primarily for agriculture and cattle ranching. . The INPE reports that 20% of the areas officially designated as protected have already been destroyed.

Currently, Amazon’s surveillance program in Brazil relies on overflights from the U.S. Landsat satellite, which provides high-definition image data every 16 days. More timely warnings on deforestation come from two satellites co-developed by Brazil and China, CBERS-4 and CBERS-4A, which together provide images every 3 to 4 days.

Amazonia-1’s cameras, which cover an area of ​​850 kilometers at a resolution of 65 meters, will not be sharper than those of existing satellites. But the new addition to the satellite fleet would narrow the gap between overflights to generate new images every day or two. This frequency increases the chances of getting clear images without cloud cover – a common problem in the rainforest – and gives authorities faster warnings about deforestation.

“One day can make all the difference,” says Cláudio Almeida, who coordinates INPE’s Amazon monitoring program and oversees its official deforestation reports. With near real-time monitoring, “control teams can get to the right place at the right time,” he says.

The use of artisanal equipment gives Brazil the technological autonomy it has long desired, Almeida adds. He recalls a “data blackout” in 2012 when a problem with Landsat threatened to leave a void in deforestation reports. The INPE had to buy expensive satellite data with poorer image quality from the UK government.

Amazonia-1 and its two intended companions will be a powerful research tool, says environmental modeling expert Britaldo Soares Filho of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, whose team relies on satellite data to model the spread of the fire and its environmental consequences in the Amazon and neighboring biomes.

But Filho fears that an unfavorable government will limit INPE’s ability to process the huge volumes of data Amazonia-1 will produce. “It’s not enough to invest in technology without investing in research and people,” he says. INPE’s budget and staff have been cut several times since 2019, when Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro declared the agency’s alarming deforestation data false and ousted its director, physicist Ricardo Galvão.

The 2021 budget proposed by the government includes a 15% reduction in the INPE, which has already resulted in the cancellation of 100 scholarships, which support nearly a quarter of the agency’s technical staff. The launch of Amazonia-1 was almost postponed after seven project researchers lost their grants. They were reinstated until March with funds from the Brazilian Space Agency to make the launch possible.

Even with the new satellite, Brazil’s remote sensing capability is far from ideal, says Galvão. The country would need “at least 30 other satellites like Amazonia-1 to meet its needs,” he said. And he’s skeptical that the current government will act on further evidence of deforestation. “I am sure that the scientists at INPE will provide the data without giving in to any pressure, but I doubt the current government will value this data,” he said.

The Brazilian government has sent mixed signals about its interest in remote sensing programs. In June 2020, the Brazilian Defense Ministry’s military allocated 145 million reals to purchase an undisclosed satellite imagery system for Amazon surveillance, for both civilian and military use. This parallel strategy threatens INPE’s efforts to create and launch its own satellites, Galvão says. “The government should value our own technology.”