Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency
Encyclopedia
The Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency (EXA) (Spanish: Agencia Espacial Civil Ecuatoriana) is the organization in charge of administering and executing the Ecuador
ian civilian space program and conducting scientific research on space and planetary sciences. It is a mixed capital non-profit organization, 50% civilian and 50% Ecuadorian government through the Ecuadorian Air Force
. It was established on November 1, 2007 and includes the first Ecuadorian trained astronaut, Ronnie Nader, among its staff members.
EXA had its first achievement with Project DAEDALUS, on May 6, 2008, during the EXA/FAE-02 mission when they successfully tested a modified Sabreliner T-39 of the Ecuadorian Air Force
flown by FAE pilots and adapted with a device created by EXA to generate microgravity by sustaining cybernetically assisted parabolic flight, becoming the first country in Latin America in developing this kind of technology by their own means.
On June 19, 2008, EXA flew in microgravity the youngest human being in history, Jules Nader, seven years old, establishing the Guinness world record for this newly created scientific category.
EXA jointly operates with the Ecuadorian Air Force
the Ecuadorian Micro Gravity Flight Program. Space Adventures
is a provider for EXA, providing services to retrofit another micro gravity plane, a FAE Boeing 727
-100.
As of September 29, 2008, EXA is a member of the International Astronautical Federation
. EXA built and operates the National UV Radiation Monitor that protects more than four million people by providing them real-time information about UV levels reaching Ecuadorian territory.
On September 8, 2009, EXA announced that had built and successfully tested the first Internet-to-Orbit voice/data gateway, the HERMES-A/MINOTAUR system, which was demonstrated at the UNOOSA Symposium on Small Satellites for Sustainable Development held in the Austrian Academy of Sciences in city of Graz
, Austria
, were participants from 31 different countries were able to operate satellites remotely from this location using the system, which is located in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The HERMES-A/MINOTAUR system is under the responsibility of the Space Operations Division of EXA.
On April 4, 2011, unveiled the first Ecuadorian satellite, the NEE-01 Pegasus
, designed and built completely in the country by an EXA engineering team led by Cmdr. Ronnie Nader, Ecuador’s first cosmonaut, and engineers Sidney Drouet, Manuel Uriguen, Héctor Carrión, Gonzalo Naranjo and Ricardo Allú, the project took almost 2 years since its conception in April 2009.
On May 17, 2011, the National Assembly awarded the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency – EXA with the VICENTE ROCAFUERTE National Medal to Scientific Merit for its outstanding and longstanding labor in designing and developing the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Program.
ESAA-01, the first suborbital mission is set for year 2012, it will be manned by Ronnie Nader and will carry two scientific experiments designed to study the radiation environment on the suborbital space zone. It is not clear from where the mission will take off, however some EXA executives have stated that, depending on some key factors, it is possible that the mission will launch from some point in the Ecuadorian coastal region.
This first phase employs a novel and ingenious scheme for low cost scientific access to space, renting the exclusive use of suborbital commercial space ships to develop this scientific missions, in order to be able to offer free or nearly no cost access to scientific research opportunities in space for Ecuadorian academic institutions. Other space agencies like NASA
, have similar schemes for suborbital space scientific research like its Scientist Participant Suborbital Research Program this is due the convenience and low cost of renting commercial suborbital ships instead of developing and maintaining their own.
All the manned and unmanned missions for the Ecuadorian space program involve scientific experiments developed in the country; the objective, EXA has said, is the "Encourage the scientific and technological development of the country and to inspire the next generations of Ecuadorian scientists, engineers and explorers, actually, the experiments for the ESAA-01 mission have been assigned to the Ecuadorian Air Force
based on the Ecuadorian micro gravity plane developed by both institutions, the PEVM-G is dedicated to:
Space Flight Control Center, built and operated by the EXA is located in Guayaquil, it is the first Internet to orbit gateway in the world and began operations on June 6, 2009, with a max range of tracking and detection of 22,000 km and a sensibility of 0.2 watts at such distance, it is the most sensible array in the region. The station is capable of relaying signals between any computer on the Internet and spacecraft in orbit, it has 4 modes of operation:
HERMES-A/MINOTAUR has 4 main functions:
The station was built with the cubesat
community in mind, to allow universities and research institutes around the world to track and communicate with their pico satellites while allowing a technology transfer to EXA. On February 5, 2010 at 05h20 UTC the HERMES gateway was key in monitoring a near miss between Iridium-33 34891 debris and the SwissCube cubesat, relaying the live cubesat signal directly to the EPFL Swiss center through the internet.
As of November 2009, there are 2 schools within the program, the Academia Cotopaxi and the Ecomundo, are the first elementary schools in the world to be able to reach satellites in real time without having to acquire their own ground station.
, designed and built in the country by Ecuadorian personnel only.
The spacecraft is a cubesat
1U type satellite, its construction took a year on EXA laboratory and it will be operated from the HERMES-A/MINOTAUR
ground station of the EXA in Guayaquil.
Its launch is scheduled for second half of 2012 on board a Russian rocket and it is to be injected on a polar orbit, between 700 and 800 km height.
The NEE-01 PEGASUS is the first known cubesat to be equipped with an on-board video camera that will transmit real time video and on-screen telemetry from orbit, it is also the first known cubesat
to be equipped with a thermal and radiation shield that EXA calls SEAM/NEMEA (Space Environment Radiation Manifold), the device has two multipanel deployable solar arrays for a total of 56 solar cells, the release and deployment of this panels, as well as the antennae deployment, is based on memory shape alloys in order to avoid perturbations in its navigation.
.
Also EXA Astronaut Corps members wear black flight suits and their dress uniforms are also black with silver accents. According to one EXA directive the reason for this combination is "black as the sky, silver as the stars"
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
ian civilian space program and conducting scientific research on space and planetary sciences. It is a mixed capital non-profit organization, 50% civilian and 50% Ecuadorian government through the Ecuadorian Air Force
Ecuadorian Air Force
The Ecuadorian Air Force is the Air arm of the Military of Ecuador and responsible for the protection of the Ecuadorian airspace.-Mission:To develop the military air wing, in order to execute institutional objectives which guarantee sovereignty and contribute towards the nation's security and...
. It was established on November 1, 2007 and includes the first Ecuadorian trained astronaut, Ronnie Nader, among its staff members.
History
EXA was established on November 1, 2007 as an independent civilian organization in charge of administering and executing the Ecuadorian civilian space program and to conduct scientific research on space and planetary sciences and encourage the development of sciences in the Ecuadorian education system.EXA had its first achievement with Project DAEDALUS, on May 6, 2008, during the EXA/FAE-02 mission when they successfully tested a modified Sabreliner T-39 of the Ecuadorian Air Force
Ecuadorian Air Force
The Ecuadorian Air Force is the Air arm of the Military of Ecuador and responsible for the protection of the Ecuadorian airspace.-Mission:To develop the military air wing, in order to execute institutional objectives which guarantee sovereignty and contribute towards the nation's security and...
flown by FAE pilots and adapted with a device created by EXA to generate microgravity by sustaining cybernetically assisted parabolic flight, becoming the first country in Latin America in developing this kind of technology by their own means.
On June 19, 2008, EXA flew in microgravity the youngest human being in history, Jules Nader, seven years old, establishing the Guinness world record for this newly created scientific category.
EXA jointly operates with the Ecuadorian Air Force
Ecuadorian Air Force
The Ecuadorian Air Force is the Air arm of the Military of Ecuador and responsible for the protection of the Ecuadorian airspace.-Mission:To develop the military air wing, in order to execute institutional objectives which guarantee sovereignty and contribute towards the nation's security and...
the Ecuadorian Micro Gravity Flight Program. Space Adventures
Space Adventures
Space Adventures, Ltd. is a Virginia, USA-based space tourism company founded in 1998 by Eric C. Anderson. , offerings include zero-gravity atmospheric flights, orbital spaceflights , and other spaceflight-related experiences including cosmonaut training, spacewalk training, and launch tours...
is a provider for EXA, providing services to retrofit another micro gravity plane, a FAE Boeing 727
Boeing 727
The Boeing 727 is a mid-size, narrow-body, three-engine, T-tailed commercial jet airliner, manufactured by Boeing. The Boeing 727 first flew in 1963, and for over a decade more were built per year than any other jet airliner. When production ended in 1984 a total of 1,832 aircraft had been produced...
-100.
As of September 29, 2008, EXA is a member of the International Astronautical Federation
International Astronautical Federation
International Astronautical Federation , the world's foremost space advocacy organisation, is based in Paris. It was founded in 1951 as a non-governmental organization. It has 206 members from 58 countries across the world. They are drawn from space agencies, industry, professional associations,...
. EXA built and operates the National UV Radiation Monitor that protects more than four million people by providing them real-time information about UV levels reaching Ecuadorian territory.
On September 8, 2009, EXA announced that had built and successfully tested the first Internet-to-Orbit voice/data gateway, the HERMES-A/MINOTAUR system, which was demonstrated at the UNOOSA Symposium on Small Satellites for Sustainable Development held in the Austrian Academy of Sciences in city of Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, were participants from 31 different countries were able to operate satellites remotely from this location using the system, which is located in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The HERMES-A/MINOTAUR system is under the responsibility of the Space Operations Division of EXA.
On April 4, 2011, unveiled the first Ecuadorian satellite, the NEE-01 Pegasus
NEE-01 Pegasus
NEE-01 Pegasus Is the first Ecuadorian satellite, built by the Ecuadorian Space Agency and presented officially in April 4, 2011The NEE-01 PEGASUS is a nano satellite, of the cubesat 1U class, it has a cubic shape and two solar panel wings with 3 panels on each side for a total of 6 panels per...
, designed and built completely in the country by an EXA engineering team led by Cmdr. Ronnie Nader, Ecuador’s first cosmonaut, and engineers Sidney Drouet, Manuel Uriguen, Héctor Carrión, Gonzalo Naranjo and Ricardo Allú, the project took almost 2 years since its conception in April 2009.
On May 17, 2011, the National Assembly awarded the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency – EXA with the VICENTE ROCAFUERTE National Medal to Scientific Merit for its outstanding and longstanding labor in designing and developing the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Program.
Structure
The agency is organized with the following divisions- Administration
- Space Operations
- Mission Control and Planning
- Astronaut Corps
- Engineering
- Sciences
- Planetary sciences
- Space sciences
- Information sciences
- International Relationships
- Corporate relationships
- Academic relationships
The Ecuadorian Civilian Space Program
The Ecuadorian Civilian Space Program has three phases, Suborbital, Orbital and Lunar, in the first Suborbital phase, three manned missions are planned, the orbital phase has at least two manned missions and three unmanned missions and the Lunar phase is composed of four unmanned and one manned mission.ESAA-01, the first suborbital mission is set for year 2012, it will be manned by Ronnie Nader and will carry two scientific experiments designed to study the radiation environment on the suborbital space zone. It is not clear from where the mission will take off, however some EXA executives have stated that, depending on some key factors, it is possible that the mission will launch from some point in the Ecuadorian coastal region.
This first phase employs a novel and ingenious scheme for low cost scientific access to space, renting the exclusive use of suborbital commercial space ships to develop this scientific missions, in order to be able to offer free or nearly no cost access to scientific research opportunities in space for Ecuadorian academic institutions. Other space agencies like NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
, have similar schemes for suborbital space scientific research like its Scientist Participant Suborbital Research Program this is due the convenience and low cost of renting commercial suborbital ships instead of developing and maintaining their own.
All the manned and unmanned missions for the Ecuadorian space program involve scientific experiments developed in the country; the objective, EXA has said, is the "Encourage the scientific and technological development of the country and to inspire the next generations of Ecuadorian scientists, engineers and explorers, actually, the experiments for the ESAA-01 mission have been assigned to the Ecuadorian Air Force
Ecuadorian Air Force
The Ecuadorian Air Force is the Air arm of the Military of Ecuador and responsible for the protection of the Ecuadorian airspace.-Mission:To develop the military air wing, in order to execute institutional objectives which guarantee sovereignty and contribute towards the nation's security and...
Ecuadorian Micro Gravity flight Program
The PEVM-G is a micro gravity flight and training program jointly operated between the EXA and the Ecuadorian Air ForceEcuadorian Air Force
The Ecuadorian Air Force is the Air arm of the Military of Ecuador and responsible for the protection of the Ecuadorian airspace.-Mission:To develop the military air wing, in order to execute institutional objectives which guarantee sovereignty and contribute towards the nation's security and...
based on the Ecuadorian micro gravity plane developed by both institutions, the PEVM-G is dedicated to:
- Training of officers and astronauts
- Biomedical research in micro gravity
- Educational support on all academic levels
- Scientific research in micro gravity
Space Flight Control Center
The HERMES-A/MINOTAURHERMES-A/MINOTAUR
HERMES-A/MINOTAUR is an Internet-to-Orbit gateway which is a device capable of routing information between information processing systems in earth orbit and information processing systems connected to the public planetary network via radio waves or even laser signals...
Space Flight Control Center, built and operated by the EXA is located in Guayaquil, it is the first Internet to orbit gateway in the world and began operations on June 6, 2009, with a max range of tracking and detection of 22,000 km and a sensibility of 0.2 watts at such distance, it is the most sensible array in the region. The station is capable of relaying signals between any computer on the Internet and spacecraft in orbit, it has 4 modes of operation:
- MODE A (Alpha): Reception of data from orbit and relay trough Internet
- MODE B (Beta) : Uplink/downlink full duplex connection between computers on the Internet and orbiting spacecraft
- MODE C (Gamma): Half duplex voice conversation between any computer on the Internet and manned spacecraft
- MODE D (Delta): Automated APT/HRPT signal relay from weather satellites to any computer on the Internet
HERMES-A/MINOTAUR has 4 main functions:
- Space flight dynamics and communications research facility
- Fourth level education facility
- Internet to orbit gateway servicing the academic and education community
- Orbital spacecraft and debris monitoring facility
The station was built with the cubesat
CubeSat
A CubeSat is a type of miniaturized satellite for space research that usually has a volume of exactly one liter , has a mass of no more than 1.33 kilograms, and typically uses commercial off-the-shelf electronics components...
community in mind, to allow universities and research institutes around the world to track and communicate with their pico satellites while allowing a technology transfer to EXA. On February 5, 2010 at 05h20 UTC the HERMES gateway was key in monitoring a near miss between Iridium-33 34891 debris and the SwissCube cubesat, relaying the live cubesat signal directly to the EPFL Swiss center through the internet.
The A SATELLITE IN CLASSROOM Program
On November 20, 2009, EXA started the A SATELLITE IN CLASSROOM program, based on the HERMES Delta mode, which provides an automatic satellite signal feed through internet so the schools connected can access earth observation satellites in real time and download pictures in many different spectrums of light of the observed region. As a result, students as young as 2nd grade can now work the whole NOAA satellite constellation and learn about satellites, the earth and the weather.As of November 2009, there are 2 schools within the program, the Academia Cotopaxi and the Ecomundo, are the first elementary schools in the world to be able to reach satellites in real time without having to acquire their own ground station.
First Ecuadorian Satellite
In April 4, 2011 EXA officially presented the first Ecuadorian satellite, the NEE-01 PegasusNEE-01 Pegasus
NEE-01 Pegasus Is the first Ecuadorian satellite, built by the Ecuadorian Space Agency and presented officially in April 4, 2011The NEE-01 PEGASUS is a nano satellite, of the cubesat 1U class, it has a cubic shape and two solar panel wings with 3 panels on each side for a total of 6 panels per...
, designed and built in the country by Ecuadorian personnel only.
The spacecraft is a cubesat
CubeSat
A CubeSat is a type of miniaturized satellite for space research that usually has a volume of exactly one liter , has a mass of no more than 1.33 kilograms, and typically uses commercial off-the-shelf electronics components...
1U type satellite, its construction took a year on EXA laboratory and it will be operated from the HERMES-A/MINOTAUR
HERMES-A/MINOTAUR
HERMES-A/MINOTAUR is an Internet-to-Orbit gateway which is a device capable of routing information between information processing systems in earth orbit and information processing systems connected to the public planetary network via radio waves or even laser signals...
ground station of the EXA in Guayaquil.
Its launch is scheduled for second half of 2012 on board a Russian rocket and it is to be injected on a polar orbit, between 700 and 800 km height.
The NEE-01 PEGASUS is the first known cubesat to be equipped with an on-board video camera that will transmit real time video and on-screen telemetry from orbit, it is also the first known cubesat
CubeSat
A CubeSat is a type of miniaturized satellite for space research that usually has a volume of exactly one liter , has a mass of no more than 1.33 kilograms, and typically uses commercial off-the-shelf electronics components...
to be equipped with a thermal and radiation shield that EXA calls SEAM/NEMEA (Space Environment Radiation Manifold), the device has two multipanel deployable solar arrays for a total of 56 solar cells, the release and deployment of this panels, as well as the antennae deployment, is based on memory shape alloys in order to avoid perturbations in its navigation.
Ensigns and emblems
EXA uses some ensigns and emblems in the uniform of its astronaut corps and they are also used by the Aerospace corps of the Ecuadorian Air ForceEcuadorian Air Force
The Ecuadorian Air Force is the Air arm of the Military of Ecuador and responsible for the protection of the Ecuadorian airspace.-Mission:To develop the military air wing, in order to execute institutional objectives which guarantee sovereignty and contribute towards the nation's security and...
.
Also EXA Astronaut Corps members wear black flight suits and their dress uniforms are also black with silver accents. According to one EXA directive the reason for this combination is "black as the sky, silver as the stars"