Based in São José dos Campos, Brazil, is a firm that was founded in 2011 as a subsidiary of Embraer Defesa e Segurança Participações S.A. — Visiona Tecnologia Espacial S.A. — and this company is now involved in all manner of spatial activities, from R&D, satellite leasing, Earth stations and more.
This firm has been working on this project with Thales Alenia Space on the Geostationary Defense and Strategic Communications (SGDC) satellite. With an Arianespace supported launch scheduled for March, the satellite will be shipping to French Guiana shortly, as the work on this spacecraft should be completed by the close of January.
Artistic rendition of the SGDC communications satellite.
Image is courtesy of Thales.
This is the firm's first geostationary satellite project and will feature 50 Ka-band transponders for comms coverage over Brazil for Telebras Telecomunicações Brasileiras and seven X-band transponders for the Brazilian Ministry of Defense. One unique aspect regarding this build was the ability for 63 Brazilian engineers to work in France with the satellite experts at Thales as the satellite was manufactured.
Visiona has also formed a new division that will work on building imagery of Brazil that will be garnered from various, global satellite operators. According to the firm, they already have a number of important partnerships in place: Airbus, DigitalGlobe, Remote Sensing Technology Center of Japan, SI Imaging Services and UrtheCast.