How Elon Musk's SpaceX Helped These Latino Students Launch Their Own Satellite Into Space

By Hernan Panessi via El Planteo. 

This is one of those stories that seems like science fiction. No, it can't be, it shouldn't be like that. But yes, it is. And it gets better: an Argentine project cooked up within a technical high school reached the major aerospace leagues.

On January 13th, the satellite was set into orbit by the Falcon 9, the famous Tesla TSLA rocket and one of Elon Musk's best gadgets. 

It is a tiny satellite (in formal terms, a picosatellite) called MDQubeSAT-1 that will serve, according to Alejandro Cordero, professor of electronics and coordinator of the project, to "give coverage to the agricultural world."

The Students 

Cordero, who vindicates teaching, and waves public education as a flag, challenged the students of Technical (High) School No. 5 in the city of Mar del Plata with designing a satellite in 2019. 

For this project, the students involved visited an innovation fair in Scotland and, in the process, for obvious reasons, they had very positive feedback from all over the world.

“It was what we had to do: show that the students are here for more things than what we think. Their capacity is infinite, what they lack is money, or a laboratory”, confesses Cordero exclusively for El Planteo.

For this work, Cordero received the award "Most Innovative Teacher in the Argentine Republic" in 2019.

“What I value about them was how they faced the challenge. Making a satellite was like their job. You can do anything, you just have to put all you got. The most beautiful thing about this is that 99% of the students today are studying engineering. The other 1%? Psychology. The wonderful thing is that they did not see the restriction of the place where they live, which are peripheral neighborhoods without resources. It is important that they are not limited by where they come from, rather, that they see everything they can be,” he added. 

From Mar del Plata to outer space

In the process, Innova Space received an offer from a startup accelerator. “Do you want to make this project a reality?” they were asked. Finally, an investment of $100,000 allowed them to bring onboard 12 engineers (4 of them aerospace engineers), in addition to the staff of students. 

Likewise, after a year of advancing through various instances, they received a subsidy from the Ministry of Productive Development for ARS $14,500,000 to pay for the launch and preparation of the satellite.

SpaceX will contribute with its know-how to the launch of the picosatellite of roughly 4 x 2 x 2 inches and less than a pound of weight.

“Working with SpaceX gives us 100% feasibility. A few days ago, another company was going to send some satellites into space and they exploded halfway. That's why, as they say, 'if you want to fly first class, fly with us,'" he explained.

The relationship with Elon Musk

The link with SpaceX was based on commercial relations. "They agreed to give us the place and we paid for the space to 'put the satellite'. It's like paying a ticket," he reveals.

-That an Argentine project reaches these instances is an absolutely positive fact for the whole country. And more so if the idea was conceived in a public school. How do you feel about it?

—That's why we did it. We want to show that here there is national capacity to produce state-of-the-art technology. We seek to be disruptive, there is nothing similar in Latin America. It makes us proud to be Argentines. The satellite has various names. The first is the one assigned by the platform: MDQSAT. The constellation will bear the name Libertadores de América and the first satellite will be called San Martín. We have to assert Latin American knowledge.

—What will be your next milestones?

—We plan to launch between 7 and 10 satellites, consolidating and strengthening the development platform. After launching the satellites, we are going to run an investment round for USD 4,000,000. And then, new rounds amounting between USD 20 and 30 million. We want to launch a constellation of between 100 and 150 satellites to provide global coverage of the Internet of Things. We don't know where all this will end. We are working on R&D that cannot be disclosed yet.

Made in Argentina

Meanwhile, the current Argentine government gave full support to Innova Space, not only "in words" and economic incentives. They were invited to be part of an international trade expo in China. "They consolidated us as a country-brand model," he confesses.

The MDQubeSAT-1 is proudly a local project. “We are Argentineans, we are going to develop everything in Argentina and all the money we get we are going to put here, in our country. We have to start this trend, help build an ecosystem. We all make our homeland together, ” says the teacher and entrepreneur.

—Are you aware of everything you generated from a public school?

—The daily rush makes us live in the vortex of work. But the footprint is there. The only one who will judge us will be the future.

Photo Courtesy of Innova Space. 

Original publication: January, 2022.