THE DSPACE NANOSATELLITE PROJECT: DEFINITION AND IMPACT IN THE PROMOTION OF THE AEROSPACE FIELD IN COSTA RICA

摘要

The Central American Association for Aeronautics and Space (ACAE, in Spanish) is a non-profit organization, which leads the efforts to introduce the Central American region in the world's technological paradigm of aerospace development. Its vision is to inspire the Central American talent to participate in the development of the aerospace industry. ACAE is working with the private sector, the government and academia of Costa Rica through initiatives as the development of the aerospace related law framework, promotion of research, generation of innovative projects and promotion and diffusion of knowledge in the aerospace field. Several initiatives in all these fields have been leaded by ACAE since its creation in 2010. ACAE concluded that one of the most efficient ways to promote the benefits of aerospace development in Costa Rica is showing its potential, designing and building the first satellite of Central America: a nanosatellite based in CubeSat standards. The DSpace Project was defined in 2012, with participation of actors interested in the development of space engineering in industry sector, academia and government. It was concluded that in order to efficiently demonstrate to the Costa Rican society the benefits of space engineering development, DSpace should accomplish a mission of scientific value in orbit. Costa Rica defined in its National Development Plan for the period 2006-2010, the goal of becoming the first carbon-neutral country of The World by 2021. In this context, it is an utmost interest of the government to promote all initiatives that will support the accomplishment of this objective. In this way, it was defined that the device will be designed to be the space segment of an environmental platform which will be gathering data in remote locations of Costa Rica. DSpace will transmit values of carbon in the atmosphere measured in remote points of interest for scientist and political decision-makers. The aim is that this system will be a device possible to implement in other nations with same necessities, especially developing countries. This paper will explain how the actors of industry, academia and government have played a fundamental role in the definition of the project, what will be the function of each one of them in the design and construction of this nanosatellite, among what is the expected direct and indirect impact for the success of such mission.