Peruvian Government Reports Investment in Airbus' PerúSAT-1 Recovered Within First Year

          By Chuck Black

Toulouse, France based Airbus SE has a successful commercial story to tell about one of its newest satellites, the PerúSAT-1, a high resolution earth observing satellite built for the Peru National Space Agency (CONIDA), an organization attached to the Peruvian Ministry of Defense.

Expect the Airbus Canadian subsidiary to reference the story every chance it gets as it seeks to win new domestic satellite and space contracts.

PerúSat 1 is an high resolution earth observing satellite  ordered by the Peruvian Space Agency in April 2014 and launched as a secondary payload on an Arianespace Vega launch vehicle in 2016. As outlined on Gunter's space page, "the satellite is designed based on Airbus Defence and Space's AstroBus-S (AstroBus-300) bus and features an imaging system from the NAOMI (New Astrosat Observation Modular Instrument) family to provide 0.7 m resolution panchromatic images and 2 m resolution images in four wavelengtt bands." Graphic c/o Airbus.

As outlined in the December 14th, 2017 SatNews Daily post, "Peruvian Government Reports Investment in Airbus' PerúSAT-1 Already Recovered ... In First Year," the Peruvian government has already declared PerúSAT-1 a great success.

According to the article, "PerúSAT-1 has completed its first year of operation and the Peruvian government has recently declared that in that time, the investment it has made into the satellite program has already been recouped."

CONIDA and the Peruvian military have been using PerúSAT-1 for a variety of activities including:

• The detection of public works irregularities for the Peruvian General Attorney's office.

• Drug trafficking intelligence and property identification for Peru's national police.

• The evaluation and analysis of landslides in the Vitorbasin for the Vitor District Municipality.

• Map generation to track deforestation in the San Martín Region.

• The generation of a new national cartography map for the National Geographical Institute (IGN) at a lower cost than could be done using traditional methods.

• Landslide and volcano monitoring for the Geology, Mining and Metallurgic Institute (INGEMMET).

• Update and  elaboration of satellite imagery, aerial reconnaissance and field data for post disaster evaluation in Lima and Callao after earthquakes for the United Nation’s Development Programme (UNPD) and the National Institute for Civil Defence (INDECI).

• Strategic support and generation of a spectral signature data base for "precision agriculture" initiatives at the San Marcos Mayor National University (UNMSM).

Since the October 2016 signing of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), a free-trade agreement between Canada and the European Union (EU) intended to eliminate 98% of the tariffs between the two, Airbus has been ramping up its efforts to sell satellite and military technology to Canadian customers in both the government and the private sector.

As outlined in the January  7th, 2017 Esprit de Corps post, "Eyes in the North: Airbus Canada aims to Deliver Cutting-Edge Space Systems," satellites and space systems, "make major contributions to the effectiveness of Canada’s maritime surveillance, search and rescue, and Arctic sovereignty capabilities."

Chuck Black.

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Chuck Black is the editor of the Commercial Space blog.