He Minairóthe third nanosatellites of the Generalitat de Catalunya, is already in orbit. The Falcon 9 rocket of the American company SpaceX It took off at 8:50 this Saturday (Catalan time) from the Vanderberg special base in California, with the Catalan nanosatellite on board.
The successful launch this Saturday takes place after two postponements this week, on Wednesday the 12th and Friday the 14th, due to bad weather conditions.
“We already have Falcon 9 in the air (and the engine has landed again on Earth). The capsule that carries the nanosatellites continues on its way upwards. First phase, successfully completed”, celebrated the Secretary for Digital Policies of the Govern, Gina Tost.
The Minairó, which measures less than a shoebox (30 centimeters long, 20 wide and 10 high) and weighs 10 kilos, will orbit around 550 kilometers from Earth and it will pass over Catalonia every five days. The nanosatellite intends to deploy an “orbiting laboratory” and will serve to improve 5G connectivity. It will provide a service to the Generalitat in the field of telecommunications when it passes over Catalan territory, while during the rest of its route it will serve other customers.
Among the tasks of the Minairó is the monitoring of crops, the management of water resources and the control of transport and merchandise. According to Sateliot co-founder Jaume Sanpera, it will provide services, above all in logistics, agriculture, livestock or renewable energy. “For example, we will be able to track containers all over the world,” Sanpera explained.
The name, chosen in collaboration with the children’s news program ‘InfoK’ on the Super 3 channel, refers to a be fantastic in the form of a tiny elf who is the protagonist of a traditional legend of Pallars and the Pyrenees.
The mission is managed by the Fundació i2CAT and the device has been developed by Sateliot, a company owned by Cellnex and Indra that was awarded this service for 650,000 euros.
Enxaneta and Menut
The first nanosatellite launched months ago by the Generalitat, Enxaneta, related to the telecommunications sector, was also designed by Sateliot -although it commissioned its manufacture to the also Catalan Open Cosmos, which was awarded a contract of just over 574,000 euros-.
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The second nanosatellite contract, that of Menut, was awarded by Open Cosmos for 1.72 million. In this case, the nanosatellite is used to obtain terrestrial observation data and monitor the effects of the climate crisis.
These initiatives are part of the Generalitat’s commitment to the new space economy, that is, the industry that emerged in parallel to CubeSat, a standard for nanosatellites that weigh less than ten kilos and that have lowered the cost of space exploration.