📋 Tender Overview
In the session, the parliamentarians questioned the Executive's decision to reject the invitation made by Israel to participate in a mission that will put an unmanned spacecraft in orbit of the moon for 5 years.
The urgent need to expedite the deadlines to update the National Space Policy (PNE) , was made present by the members of the Foreign Relations commissions ; of National Defense ; and Challenges of the Future , in the framework of a joint session where they analyzed the steps that the Executive is taking in this regard.
The Ministers of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, Aisén Etcheverry; and Defense, Maya Fernández explained how these portfolios work on updating said policy that was developed until 2020. As of 2021, this task was entrusted to a Presidential Advisory Commission that has met twice and that at the end of this year, he must deliver a report to President Gabriel Boric.
In this line, work would already be done in international collaborations with NASA within the framework of the IMAP (space weather monitoring) and ARTEMIS (manned and unmanned trips to the moon and Mars) projects, and in the National Satellite Program that has five subsystems, including the construction of nanosatellites and microsatellites, and space centers.
The president of the united instances, and head of the Foreign Relations Commission, Senator Francisco Chahuán insisted on the relevance of activating ties with other nationals in favor of aerospace development. "An important example will be the participation of the director of the Chinese Space Agency and her counterpart from the United Arab Emirates, in the next Future Congress 2024."
Meanwhile, the president of the Future Challenges Commission, Senator Ximena Rincón , was concerned about the slow progress with which the draft of the PNE has advanced, arguing that "April of this year the deadline for the president to receive the policy. It is explained to us that the ad hoc commission has only met twice”.
In turn, the president of the National Defense Commission, Kenneth Pugh, consulted about the risk that Chile has of losing space in the Clark belt, by not installing a geostationary satellite. He also pointed out the need for the Ministry of Sciences to include space policy in a gloss in the next budget discussion.
BERESHEET MISSION 2
On the occasion, the senators in a transversal manner, questioned the Executive's decision to reject the invitation made to the State of Chile by the Israeli ambassador, Gil Artzyeli, to participate in the Beresheet 2 lunar mission of the Israeli NGO SpaceIL.
The project involves sending an unmanned spacecraft to orbit the moon for 5 years with two independent modules landing on the visible, dark side of the moon for exploration, educational, and scientific purposes. The invitation allowed the country to choose five engineers to join the team of 35 professionals who will be involved in the project. In addition, a Chilean scientist would be invited to stay for 2 years as an adviser to the scientific committee of Israel.
The senators asked the Executive to reconsider the decision after Minister Etecheverry explained that “it was decided not to participate because the project was closed. Only the construction process was going to be done and there was no learning involved for our engineers. What was earned was zero ”.
Faced with this, senators Rojo Edwards, Iván Moreira, Pedro Araya, Alfonso De Urresti and Jaime Quintana advocated continuing to review this matter, this time with the presence of Foreign Minister Alberto van Klaveren. They assured that "this is a decision that represents us as a country", "it is a unique invitation and it is very possible that it will not be repeated again", "we would have been the second country in the world to land on the dark side of the moon", "if the reasons were economic, the 7 million dollars are marginal”.
On another topic, Senators Felipe Kast, José Miguel Insulza and Ximena Órdenes pointed to the reasons why Chile should build and launch satellites into space considering that today it is already known for being an international astronomical observatory. They also mentioned the relevance of articulating the work of the different ministries involved in a managing agency.
