VRSS-1 (Venezuelan Remote Sensing Satellite-1), also known as (Satellite) Francisco Miranda, is the first

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an physical object, object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring inform ...

satellite, and the second Venezuelan satellite after VENESAT-1. It will be used to study the territory of Venezuela and help with planning, agriculture and disaster recovery. It was built and launched by the Chinese and has been named after Venezuelan revolutionary

Francisco de Miranda Sebastián Francisco de Miranda y Rodríguez de Espinoza (28 March 1750 – 14 July 1816), commonly known as Francisco de Miranda (), was a Venezuelan military leader and revolutionary who fought in the American Revolutionary War, the French R ...

. It reached end of life in 2022.

Satellite

The satellite was built after a contract between Venezuela and China was signed in

Caracas Caracas ( , ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas (CCS), is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the northern p ...

on 26 May 2011, and follows from their previous collaboration on VENESAT-1. The contract, worth $144.8 million

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

, included $67.8 million for the satellite, $22m for the launch, $16m for the

ground station A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves fr ...

in Venezuela and $22m for software. The main contractor is

China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) is a main contractor for the Chinese space program. It is state-owned and has subsidiaries which design, develop and manufacture a range of spacecraft, launch vehicles, and ground equ ...

and the satellite is based on the CAST 2000 bus developed by the

China Academy of Space Technology The China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) () is a Chinese space agency and subordinate of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC). The agency was founded on 20 February 1968, and is the main spacecraft development and pr ...

. One source posits that VRSS-1 is based upon the Chinese

Yaogan Yaogan () is the designation used by the People's Republic of China to refer to its military reconnaissance satellites. Yaogan satellites are largely known to primarily support the People's Liberation Army's Strategic Support Force (PLASSF), f ...

-2 reconnaissance satellite. The satellite contains two different resolution cameras. The highest resolution ones have a resolution of in

panchromatic A panchromatic emulsion is a type of photographic emulsion that is sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light, and produces a monochrome photograph—typically black and white. Most modern commercially available film is panchromatic, and the t ...

mode, and in multispectral mode. The lower resolution cameras have a resolution of . It will provide 350 images a day, with the first one on or about 10 October. The satellite will pass over Venezuela three or four times every 24 hours and will cover the same area of Venezuela every 57 days. It is controlled from the Base Aeroespacial Capitán Manuel Ríos in El Sombrero,

Guárico Guárico State (, ) is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is San Juan de Los Morros and the largest city is Calabozo, other important city centers include Valle de la Pascua and Zaraza. Guárico State covers a total surface ...

and managed by Venezuela's Bolivarian Agency for Space Activities. It has an estimated life of 5 years.

Launch

The satellite was launched on 29 September 2012 at 4:12 UTC from pad 603 at launch complex 43 at Jiuquan Launch Centre in China. It was launched by a

Long March 2D The Long March 2D (), also known as the Chang Zheng 2D, CZ-2D, and LM-2D, is a Chinese two-stage orbital carrier rocket mainly used for launching LEO and SSO satellites. It is manufactured by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology ( ...

rocket which put the satellite into

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

. It was given the international designator 2012-052A and the

United States Space Command United States Space Command (USSPACECOM or SPACECOM) is a unified combatant command of the United States Department of Defense, responsible for military operations in outer space, specifically all operations 100 kilometers (62 miles) and greater ...

assigned it the

Satellite Catalog Number The Satellite Catalog Number (SATCAT), also known as NORAD Catalog Number, NORAD ID, USSPACECOM object number, is a sequential nine-digit number assigned by the United States Space Command (USSPACECOM), and previously the North American Aerospac ...

38782.

References

External links

Satélite Miranda (VRSS-1)
(in Spanish) {{Orbital launches in 2012 Satellites of Venezuela Satellites of China Satellites orbiting Earth Spacecraft launched in 2012 2012 in China 2012 in Venezuela

Satellite

Launch

See also

References

External links