By Sean McClinton
Last month, the LatSat conference was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina on May 23-24, attracting many of the industry’s brightest minds to discuss the state of the space industry in Latin America. RBC Signals CEO Christopher Richins was in attendance. Many other influential space executives and government officials in Latin America were also in attendance, including the President of Argentina. With the space industry in Latin American getting more and more attention from the highest levels of government, we wanted to highlight the state of the space industry in Latin America – some of the opportunities, challenges, and players.
Latin American countries today are looking to space technology to bring benefits to more and more of their population with modern digital communications. There are government funds available for the provisioning of space technology. In some cases, new services like Starlink may be used, and in other cases governments may launch their own satellites, for example the Arsat program in Argentina. The goal here is to deploy services to even the most remote communities so they can be connected to the global economy.
Data communications is a double-edged sword. A lot of work on ground terminals is needed in Latin America, but often the price point of those ground terminals is a challenge for rural communities. This is often still less onerous than trying to trench fiber, however. Satellites present an opportunity to leapfrog traditional communications infrastructure capital expenses.
Communications are not the only area of focus in Latin America. Other areas of focus include Earth Observation for resource management, and the provisioning of basic services in healthcare and education. In particular, satellite IoT is an area that promises to actualize the potential of resource management. Companies like Satellogic are providing hyperspectral Earth observation data. Another example of IoT in Latin America is the partnership between Globalstar and the Globalsat Group designed to monitor remote renewable energy stations in Latin America.
RBC Signals has been performing an increasing number of projects in Latin America, namely in Chile, Argentina, Columbia, Ecuador and Brazil. These projects are supporting small satellite missions in low-Earth orbit (LEO). Just as we’ve seen significant ground station buildouts in high northern latitudes like Scandanavia, and the North Slope of Alaska, we are now seeing significant buildouts of ground stations for LEO smallsats in areas to the very far south such as Punta Arenas, Chile.
Almost every country in Latin America has some sort of active space program, the question is how to determine the best use of satellite technology to achieve that country’s and its communities’ goals. Some countries look to sovereign capabilities, and some look to procure services. Whichever path countries in Latin America choose, the development promises to be exciting and one in which RBC Signals will actively participate.