Brazil-China Satellite to Track Deforestation Slated for 2019

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A sixth satellite developed in a joint venture by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in Brazil and the China Academy of Space Technology (Cast) is undergoing testing and is scheduled to be launched in 2019.

The satellite, Cbers-4A, will help to monitor deforestation, fires and expansion of agriculture and cities in, among other locations, the Amazon region, where deforestation is said to be on the rise again.

According to research NGO Imazon (Human and Environment Institute of the Amazon) Brazil registered in 2017 the greatest number of fires since 1999, when the historical series of the National Institute of Space Research (INPE) began to be recorded.

“An analysis of the locations where the fires occurred shows that the fires increased in areas of natural forest, advancing in places where there was previously no record of flames, and reaching protected areas and indigenous lands,” said the NGO in a report earlier this year.

The announcement of the satellite to monitor the Amazon was made during the celebration of the 30th anniversary of space cooperation between the two countries at the Chinese embassy in Brasilia.

The partnership, known as the Cbers Program (Sino-Brazilian Program of Terrestrial Resources), has already allowed for the production of five Sino-Brazilian satellites. The sixth device, the Cbers-4A, is slated for release next year in Taiyuan, China. The cost of this satellite is said to be about R$240 million and each country is picking up 50 percent of the tab for the project.

“Every effort to expand knowledge in strategic areas such as space is valid. We had the need to develop Earth observation satellites. And we had this incredible opportunity to be invited by the Chinese to participate in a collective effort,” said the president of the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB), José Raimundo Braga Coelho, during the event.