MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Tracking satellite for Chilean military and civilian use

Chile's Defence Ministry will be deciding in the coming days the acquisition of a satellite, dual purpose, military and civilian which is estimated would cost in the range of 70 million US dollars, according to military sources in Santiago.

The short list of the bidding process has two companies, one from France and a second from Canada. The third option, from Israel, which was considered favorite by the military because of its technical advances and close military cooperation links with Chile, was finally discarded. The Chilean Armed Forces and Israel have a close relation dating back to the eighties when they became one of the main suppliers of Chile undergoing the partial arms embargo imposed on the Pinochet regime. Other bids but which didn't make it were from Russia, South Korea and India. However the final decision rests on the Minister of Defence Jose Goñi and should be announced before June 30. According to Chilean military sources the satellite will have the capacity of receiving multi spectral images of neighboring countries. Chile which almost went to war with Argentina in 1978/79 has patched most differences with Buenos Aires but still has pending border and historic disputes with Peru and above all with Bolivia that claims an ocean outlet. Bolivia lost the outlet following the defeat with its ally Peru of the 1879 Pacific war. The satellite will also render black and white pictures of the region in a scale of a square meter per pixel, and four square meters for multi-spectral images both infra red and ultra violet. This capability will allow Chile to have a continuous and close look of surrounding territories and sea surface. The satellite capacity of the Chilean Armed Forces is expected to be soon reinforced with the acquisition of an unmanned flying object, which can develop similar monitoring operations, according to remarks from Chile's head of the Army General Oscar Izurieta, during a recent military ceremony. Resides, the objectives of the Defence Ministry, Satellite aims to study natural resources, with a periodicity of two or three days.