9.3.9 Brazil
The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) was created in 1961 to provide
training in scientific research and space technologies. As a federal agency of the
Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications it is a center
of excellence in space engineering and atmospheric science, meteorology, Earth
observation and climate change.
All stratospheric balloon launches fall under the Atmospheric and Space
Science organization, and under that is the Balloon Launch Sector (Setor de
Lançamento de Baloes or SLB in Portuguese). It provides technical and infrastructure support to Brazilian researchers, as well as other national or foreign
institutions that need a low-cost vehicle to conduct their research. Brazil offers a
southern mid-latitude location for some applications. This division is responsible
for the management, planning and execution of launches, tracking, and recovery
of the payload. They have conducted more than a hundred launches of stratospheric balloons carrying payloads for a variety of scientific research.
The infrastructure for launching balloons is primarily located at the launch base
at the INPE site in Cachoeira Paulista, Sao Paulo state. Airports and military bases
in other regions of the country have also been used. While the site has been used
for launches of stratospheric balloons of various sizes for universities, they have
also carried out joint campaigns with NASA, the French Space Agency (CNES),
the Japanese space agency (JAXA), and scientific institutions around the world.
However, the site has been inactive since 2010.
Another group launched smaller balloons from the outskirts of the city of Baurú
in Sao Paulo state. These launches were for a project called TRO-Pico, designed
to study how “tropical convective overshooting” influences the moisture balance
in the stratosphere at both local and wide scales. The initiative was carried out by
several research institutes and universities from France and it involved more than
thirty flights in 2012-2013.
In 2013, the Brazilian government began to plan to start a project using balloons to provide internet access to remote areas of the country but not using the
Google Loon project. Its Conectar (Portuguese for “connect”) project, which is
overseen by INPE, is not the first to launch balloons to bring internet-transmitting
stations to hard-to-reach locations such as rainforests.
While Google’s Loon uses balloons floating freely at altitudes of 20 km (65,000
ft) Conectar plans to anchor its balloons at strategic points at 300 m (1,000 ft) as
transmission towers to serve rural locations which are not covered by fiber-optic
cable network such as the Amazon basin, north-east Brazil, and mid-west Brazil.
Of course such balloons will be vulnerable to bad weather and interference from
lightning and wind.
222 The Balloon World
The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) was created in 1961 to provide
training in scientific research and space technologies. As a federal agency of the
Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications it is a center
of excellence in space engineering and atmospheric science, meteorology, Earth
observation and climate change.
All stratospheric balloon launches fall under the Atmospheric and Space
Science organization, and under that is the Balloon Launch Sector (Setor de
Lançamento de Baloes or SLB in Portuguese). It provides technical and infrastructure support to Brazilian researchers, as well as other national or foreign
institutions that need a low-cost vehicle to conduct their research. Brazil offers a
southern mid-latitude location for some applications. This division is responsible
for the management, planning and execution of launches, tracking, and recovery
of the payload. They have conducted more than a hundred launches of stratospheric balloons carrying payloads for a variety of scientific research.
The infrastructure for launching balloons is primarily located at the launch base
at the INPE site in Cachoeira Paulista, Sao Paulo state. Airports and military bases
in other regions of the country have also been used. While the site has been used
for launches of stratospheric balloons of various sizes for universities, they have
also carried out joint campaigns with NASA, the French Space Agency (CNES),
the Japanese space agency (JAXA), and scientific institutions around the world.
However, the site has been inactive since 2010.
Another group launched smaller balloons from the outskirts of the city of Baurú
in Sao Paulo state. These launches were for a project called TRO-Pico, designed
to study how “tropical convective overshooting” influences the moisture balance
in the stratosphere at both local and wide scales. The initiative was carried out by
several research institutes and universities from France and it involved more than
thirty flights in 2012-2013.
In 2013, the Brazilian government began to plan to start a project using balloons to provide internet access to remote areas of the country but not using the
Google Loon project. Its Conectar (Portuguese for “connect”) project, which is
overseen by INPE, is not the first to launch balloons to bring internet-transmitting
stations to hard-to-reach locations such as rainforests.
While Google’s Loon uses balloons floating freely at altitudes of 20 km (65,000
ft) Conectar plans to anchor its balloons at strategic points at 300 m (1,000 ft) as
transmission towers to serve rural locations which are not covered by fiber-optic
cable network such as the Amazon basin, north-east Brazil, and mid-west Brazil.
Of course such balloons will be vulnerable to bad weather and interference from
lightning and wind.
222 The Balloon World