Hisdesat announces window launch of PAZ Satellite
October 9, 2017
The General Staff of Defense, through its highest representative, the General of the Army, Fernando Alejandre Martínez (JEMAD) and accompanied by the Admiral, Francisco Javier González-Huix Fernández, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JEMACON) have visited the PAZ satellite, owned by the Spanish government satellite services company, Hisdesat. In this meeting, they learned the latest details about the satellite before moving to California for its next launch, appreciating the different key elements that make this Spanish satellite a milestone for the space industry of our country.
Hisdesat, owner of the satellite, made public last March the election of the US company Space X to put PAZ into orbit through its Falcon 9 launcher in the Vandenberg (California) area base. The launch window has already been confirmed as January 30, 2018.
The PAZ satellite incorporates as its main payload an active sensor with synthetic aperture radar technology that provides images of different sizes and resolutions, both day and night, and regardless of the weather conditions, which will allow you to provide solutions of observation of the Earth for multiple applications, both government and commercial, including those requiring very high-resolution images, below the meter. The satellite will be able to take more than 100 images per day, with which it will cover an area of more than 300,000 square kilometers per day, with high-resolution images. It will give fifteen revolutions a day to the Earth, at a height of 514 kilometers and with a speed of seven kilometers per second. Given its slightly inclined quasi-polar orbit, PAZ will cover the entire globe with an average 24-hour revisit time.
In addition, as secondary payloads, the PAZ satellite will carry on board an ICE-CSIC Radio Occultation and Extreme Precipitation experiment (ROHP) and an AIS receiver from the Canadian listed company exactEarth, of which Hisdesat is the largest shareholder, so that for the first time a merger of SAR and AIS data simultaneously can be made, which will allow to have the best possible monitoring of the maritime environment around the world. Its total estimated weight is 1400 kg., Measures 5 m. of height and has 2.4 m. diameter.
The satellite's main contractor was Airbus Defence & Space, involving a consortium of 18 Spanish companies and universities. On the other hand, the owner of the ground segment is INTA, which has had as subcontractors a Spanish industrial group headed by INDRA, GMV and DEIMOS and the German DLR.
The PAZ satellite will be located in the same orbit of the German satellites TSX and TDX to form a SAR constellation, which will be exploited by Hisdesat and Airbus DS GEO, offering a shorter time of revisit and greater number of images to our clients.
The PAZ satellite is part of the PNOTS National Earth Observation Satellite Program, with the Ingenio satellite (optical), led by the Ministry of Industry and the CDTI, being the second member of the aforementioned program.