Isro Prepares To Launch Brazil’s Amazonia-1 Satellite Aboard PSLV In August This Year

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is gearing up to lift off Brazil’s Amazonia-1 satellite next month onboard the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) As per a report in the Financial Express, Amazonia-1 will be the first satellite for Earth Observation that is designed, assembled and tested in Brazil. The launch of the Brazilian satellite is confirmed, but there is not clarity on a date for the planned launch. The report quoted a top diplomat as saying that it all depends on the ISRO as to when it is planning to blast off the satellite. The images provided by Amazonia-1 will help in observing and monitoring the deforestation of the Amazon region, the report adds. The satellite has gained special importance in the wake of recent fires in the Amazon. India and Brazil signed a Framework Agreement for cooperation in the field of outer space in January 2004. Apart from this, an agreement on the programme of cooperation between the two space agencies was also signed. Under this, Brazil received data from ISRO’s remote sensing satellite ResourceSAT-1. The two countries, in July 2014, also signed an agreement on cooperation to alter a Brazilian earth station to receive and process data from the Indian Remote Sensing satellites (IRS) series. The agreements also meant that ISRO is obliged to make data from its projects available to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the Brazilian executive agency receiving earth observation data, and remote sensing data from areas under the INPE’s domain. The Amazonia-1 launch is among the 36 space and satellite missions ISRO has planned over the next two years, according to a central government report in March this year. These will include milestone missions like Chandrayaan-3 (a moon lander mission) and an uncrewed mission for Gaganyaan, India’s maiden human spaceflight mission planned for 2021/22.