{"id":356509,"date":"2026-03-31T08:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/356509\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:10:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:10:16","slug":"portuguese-satellite-launch-was-a-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/356509\/","title":{"rendered":"Portuguese satellite launch was a success"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Ignition and liftoff” was heard at 12:02 pm \u2013 the scheduled launch time, which was initially planned for 11:20 am \u2013 generating applause in the Jos\u00e9 Mariano Gago Auditorium at the Pavilh\u00e3o do Conhecimento \u2013 Centro Ci\u00eancia Viva, where the event was broadcast live.<\/p>\n

The six satellites were launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, United States, as part of the New Space Portugal Agenda, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.<\/p>\n

Four of the satellites \u2013 Cam\u00f5es, Agustina, Pessoa, and Saramago, named in honour of Portuguese writers \u2013 are part of the Lus\u00edada constellation, which will allow the creation of a maritime navigation service.<\/p>\n

It will be a kind of “Waze for the oceans,” the CEO of LusoSpace<\/a>, responsible for the project, summarised.<\/p>\n

Portuguese constellation<\/p>\n

According to Ivo Vieira, the constellation, which will have five satellites in orbit after launch (the first \u2013 PoSAT-2 \u2013 was launched in January 2025), will enable the creation of a maritime navigation service to provide ships with real-time information.<\/p>\n

“It will allow any ship in the middle of the sea to have communications at a very affordable price and, thus, we can have a maritime internet network and create the Waze of the oceans, so that we can share the data that exists at sea, such as pirate alerts, weather, people who need support, drifting icebergs, oil spills and much more,” he added.<\/p>\n

The first data should be available after three months, but the service will only be “fully operational” in 2027, when the 12 satellites that make up the constellation are in orbit.<\/p>\n

On board the Falcon 9, two other satellites, which are part of the Atlantic Constellation, were also launched: a SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite from the Air Force, and an optical satellite (VHRLight NexGen) under the responsibility of CEiiA and N3O.<\/p>\n

The two satellites join the other three already in orbit of the Atlantic Constellation, reinforcing a “dual-use capability that will serve Portugal and Europe,” the director of New Space Portugal, the consortium that finances the constellations as a whole through the Recovery and Resilience Plan, highlighted.<\/p>\n

Data collection<\/p>\n

According to Emir Sirage, the data collected through the Atlantic Constellation could be used for defence and security purposes, but will also have civilian uses in areas such as disaster response, precision agriculture, environmental monitoring, carbon mapping, security and defence.<\/p>\n

The SAR satellite is the first Air Force satellite launched into space, and, according to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, it helps foster a “synergistic environment” between academia and national industry.<\/p>\n

General S\u00e9rgio Pereira also anticipated that the Air Force, through the Aerospace Technology and Innovation Centre, would install “clean rooms” for the manufacture of satellites at the Air Force General Material Depot in Alverca.<\/p>\n

Mission success<\/p>\n

Eight minutes and 38 seconds after launch, the first segment of the rocket returned to Earth and landed on a maritime platform, and the mission was considered a success, a statement that generated further enthusiastic applause, while the second segment, which carries the satellites, continues its mission at more than 28,000 kilometres per hour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Ignition and liftoff” was heard at 12:02 pm \u2013 the scheduled launch time, which was initially planned for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-356509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}