Design of a Peruvian small satellite network

The Center for Technological Information and Communications (CTIC) at the National University of Engineering (UNI for its initials in Spanish) in Lima, Peru, is in charge of the design of a national concept for the implementation of a Network of ground stations for small satellite missions. Currently CTIC conducts investigation on how to carry out this challenging project for the country and for the Peruvian industry. The main idea of the proposed network shall be supported not only by Peruvian government institutions, but also by national and international universities. The establishment of such a program has already been started and a couple of European entities and universities are interested in becoming co-partner within the project. The ground stations will be located in remote places in Peru thus providing wide communication coverage, permitting longer contact capabilities between the satellite and the ground, and creating a complex space and ground based system. A network including these places will cover a landscape area larger than 1.5 Mio Km2. In general small satellites use a low data rate downlink. Due to less number of access and low power capacity the usage of an UHF transmitter is the only possibility. The proposed network will widen the contact possibility with the satellites and this way there will be more opportunity to dump a higher amount of data. Since the communication system for small satellites are developing in a rapid pace, this network would be beneficial to dump data faster and it will have the option to collect and distribute data in an effective manner for the users. This will allow generating more accurate data from the instruments or from the spacecraft itself. The network will be implemented, at a first level, with UHF band antennas and in the future will be translated for S-band antennas. This network will be functional for the Peruvian small satellite program and also for all the missions that currently work with and use UHF band a- - ntennas.