LATIN AMERICANS IN SPACE
Program Description
The goal of this program is to expose elementary school children to real and working space technology in order to inspire awe and wonder, to wake up the engineer and scientist in them and to show them that this is something they can do, since early age.
The means of this program is to connect a computer in a classroom with orbiting meteorological satellites in real time to download images and teach them how to decode them.
It is based on the successful Ecuadorian Space Agency’s program of the same name, now 8 years old, with proven results that have been published in past IACs and indexed journals.
Average results shows up to 70% increase in STEM subject grades such as mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, which historically have shown poor results.
When a student with a record of low grades in STEM subjects suddenly achieves excellence in them, the result is empowerment, belief in oneself.
Program Description
The goal of this program is to allow Latin American professionals to be trained as payload specialists and fly a suborbital space mission as crew with the objective of operate an experiment of science or an engineering test and expose it to up to 5 minutes of microgravity in order to inspire the whole region by demonstrating the actual capabilities of its people in manned space missions fully crewed only by Latin Americans.
The means of this program is to train a crew of 5 payload specialist and 1 mission commander using a shorter version of the Advanced Suborbital Astronaut Training Program (ASA/T) developed by EXA/GCTC (Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center) and then fly a technical research mission in suborbital space reaching more than 100 km above Earth’s surface, onboard the Blue Origin’s New Shepard (NS) launch vehicle.
It is based on the first U.S. manned space mission of 1961 flown by Alan Shepard by the means of the Mercury Redstone 3 launch vehicle onboard the Freedom 7 capsule on a Vertical takeoff and capsule landing suborbital flight profile.
The result we want to achieve is not only to demonstrate that the region can produce its own astronauts, but to acquire the talent and workforce that the region needs if it is going to join the mankind’s effort to expand beyond this planet in order to survive.
How it Works?
LATIN AMERICANS IN SPACE
6 Latinamerican professionals per mission will fly into suborbital space to perform technology test/experiments and after 10 minutes of flight the capsule will descent in parachute and land safely.
Conditions
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The influence target of the program is to have at least 10 manned missions in the LAC region in the first 4 years, and to fly at least 1 citizen for each LAC region country.
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Latin Americans living in USA and Canada can apply also.
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We still do not have a cost estimate per crew member as Blue Origin has not released this figure yet.
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The program will be open for any eligible professional in the LAC region that is sponsored by an IAF institution member.
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EXA will fill the mission commander position as well as assume the mission directorate role.
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To apply, the institution needs to enter its research project and candidate profile into the LATCOSMOS-C Platform (Latin Americans in Space).
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Candidates will be vetted by EXA’s Mission Directorate and the result will be given to the applying institution.
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Training will take place in the U.S. and possibly Canada and Ecuador.
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Each crew member will fly as an official astronaut/cosmonaut if the proposing institution is an space agency member of the IAF. In some cases the candidate apply to fly as an EXA International Cosmonaut if his/her country does not has an space agency.
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When the proposing institution can demonstrate that it does not have the funds to provide for its candidate’s mission it can apply for such funding into the Orbit Muse platform.
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The Eligibility criteria for crew candidate selection is published in the LATCOSMOS-C Platform
