MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil working on satellite partnership with NASA

“This is a proposal that the NASA administrator brought on the visit to President Lula,” Santos explained

Brazilian Science Minister Luciana Santos Tuesday launched a proposition to United States Space Agency (NASA) Administrator Bill Nelson for both countries to develop together new satellites and aerospace technologies to monitor deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, Agencia Brasil reported.

Santos came up with such a suggestion in a meeting at the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), in São José dos Campos, in São Paulo, which was also attended by Inpe Director Clezio Nardin and the president of the Brazilian Space Agency, Marco Antonio Chamon.

Nelson is visiting Brazil to try to expand the partnership in monitoring the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and preservation efforts. On Monday he had a meeting with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“This is a proposal that the NASA administrator brought on the visit to President Lula. In this specific case, we have access to data from satellites that are already being launched. And we are proposing another possibility, which would be for us to jointly develop other initiatives,” Santos said.

According to the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation, the monitoring of the Amazon is currently carried out by the remote sensing satellites CBERS and Amazonia-1 - the latter entirely Brazilian. A new technology under development by Inpe, the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), will allow data generation in any weather condition since the system “sees” through clouds, which is essential in the Amazon region.

“We have just received Bill's proposal and we are evaluating it. Our counter-proposal is this: That we study the development of a joint satellite. But it is obvious that we need to have the political decision,” Nardin explained.

According to Nelson, NASA is offering Brazil access to data from two satellites already in the launch phase. One of them, developed in partnership with India, should be launched next January. The equipment would be able, according to Nelson, to “see” even through the treetops.

“It will be able to look through the forest canopy so we can see if someone has burned the underbrush that would end up killing the big trees,” he said. “It takes years and years to develop these satellites. [In the satellite that will be launched in January], the information will be available now,” he added.

(Source: Agencia Brasil)