Brazil’s Amazonia-1 satellite. Photo: Business Wire

Spaceflight was awarded a contract to provide launch services for Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE,) the research unit of the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation, and Communications. The company will be launching the Amazonia-1 satellite, and is targeting a mid-2020 launch.

INPE’s Amazonia-1 satellite is the first Earth observation satellite to be completely designed, integrated, tested, and operated by Brazil. Its goal is to autonomously observe the national territory of Brazil, in particular the Amazon region. Amazonia-1 is also the first satellite based on Brazilian Multi Mission Platform (MMP), a general purpose service bus for 500 kilogram class satellites.

Amazonia-1 will be the primary spacecraft on the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) mission, with the excess capacity filled by Spaceflight’s smallsat rideshare customers. Targeting mid-2020, Amazonia-1 will be deployed to a mean altitude 760 kilometers sun-synchronous orbit, while the additional secondary rideshare spacecraft will be deployed at a lower altitude. Spaceflight will provide a combination of launch and end-to-end mission management services, as well as hardware for INPE.