Advances for the first Centra-America satellite: Providing solutions to the challenges of environmental monitoring in tropical developing countries

Paper number

IAC-15,B4,1,8,x30750

Author

Mr. Luis Carlos Rosales Alpízar, Costa Rica Institute of Technology (ITCR), Costa Rica

Author

Dr. Julio Calvo-Alvarado, Costa Rica Institute of Technology (ITCR), Costa Rica

Author

Ms. Ana Julieta Calvo-Obando, Costa Rica Institute of Technology (ITCR), Costa Rica

Author

Mrs. Arys Carrasquilla-Batista, Costa Rica Institute of Technology (ITCR), Costa Rica

Coauthor

Mr. Carlos Alvarado, Central American Association for Aeronautics and Space (ACAE), Costa Rica

Coauthor

Mr. Adolfo Chaves Jimenez, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), The Netherlands

Year

2015

Abstract

\begin{document}
Tecnológico de Costa Rica (TEC) is a public university dedicated to research on multiple science and engineering fields. Over the last 15 years, TEC's forestry engineering department has conducted field research on the reaction and adaptation of tropical forest ecosystems to the climate change variations. Researchers have monitoring stations installed over vast protected areas with difficult access which challenges the data retrieval after long ground trips to remote locations, often facing problems such as valuable pieces of information missing due to data loss, not to mention maintaining sensing stations operational using batteries, solar cells among other resources.
In parallel, TEC’s electronics & computers engineering department has an increasing interest in providing low cost & power efficient applications for remote data collection and monitoring by using free software and hardware resources. A third branch joins this project through the TEC-ACAE (Central America Space and Aeronautics Association) agreement, which aims to boost the development of aerospace science and engineering capabilities in Costa Rica. This year (2015), both: Scientific and Engineering departments have started a joint effort under TEC’s sponsorship, which intends to design and produce a series of self-sustainable wireless sensor networks, able to collect scientific data from different sensors located in remote protected forest areas from Costa Rica’s territory and transport it by using a data-relay service provide by Costa Rica’s first CubeSat mission, currently under development.
This project’s ultimate goal is to demonstrate how the use of low-cost technological applications combined to reduced costs of CubeSat space missions can accelerate and improve the impact of this type of research, allowing scientists to have access to near real-time data to monitor climate change effects on key forest indicators such as vegetal mass growth, photosynthetic active radiation, soil moisture, temperature, rainfall and carbon dioxide concentration. First stage of this project is targeted for a 3-year execution cycle, ending with a results and impact analysis which may enable another 3-year stage to replicate ground research and engineering results on wider territory areas, studying different types of forest and vegetable species as well as to replicate the space segment results by planning, conducting and cooperating with other small satellite missions.
\end{document}

Abstract document

IAC-15,B4,1,8,x30750.brief.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-15,B4,1,8,x30750.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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