Both organizations will work on designing an innovation management model for the National Space System.
The agreement was signed during the International Air and Space Fair, FIDAE 2022, with the participation of the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Air Force (Fuerza Aérea de Chile, FACh), General Arturo Merino Núñez, and the Space Director, Brigadier General Luis Felipe Sáez Collantes.
Representing Know Hub were Executive Director Javier Ramírez; Technology Transfer Manager Fernando Venegas; and Carlos Saffie, member of the Know Hub Chile board and Director of Innovation at the Universidad de Chile.
This agreement is the first activity of the LaunchPad initiative, under which Know Hub will design an innovation management model for the National Space System (SNE).
The SNE’s flagship program is the National Satellite System (SNSat). Announced by the government in 2020, it will give Chile 10 new satellites to replace “FASat-Charlie”, which reached the end of its service life more than four years ago. By 2025, three minisatellites weighing less than 100 kilos each and seven microsatellites are expected to be placed in orbit. The company “Space X” will be in charge of launching the 10 satellites.
Eight of the 10 satellites will be built entirely in Chile by Chilean technicians and engineers from the Air Force and from several of the country’s universities.
In this regard, Know Hub executive director Javier Ramírez said: “It is a privilege for us to contribute our capabilities to the success of the SNE and SNSAT, which we see as excellent examples of large public-private cooperation projects and of how these initiatives can contribute to regional and national development.”
Dual-tech program
Know Hub Chile’s motto is “We collaborate to transform science into innovation.” This collaboration takes place in the so-called “national innovation ecosystem”, that is, the complex network of relationships among the different players involved in the long value chain that runs from the lab to the market: from companies and universities to investment funds, entrepreneurs and, of course, the State. However, our country lacked the systematic participation of one key player: the defense sector.
With this in mind, Know Hub set itself the goal of helping bring defense into the innovation ecosystem. To achieve this goal, the organization created the Know Hub Dual-Tech program, which encompasses the activities of the LaunchPad initiative.
Read the Chilean Air Force’s article on the signing of the agreement here
