By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Oct 29 2008 (IPS)

Venesat-1 Simón Bolívar was launched into space Wednesday in China, making Venezuela the fourth Latin American country with its own satellite, along with Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.

“This is an act of liberation,” said President Hugo Chávez, after watching the launch on a TV screen at a tracking station in Luepa, in southeastern Venezuela. “We now have a socialist satellite, to build socialism in our country and cooperate with and assist other nations.”

At his side, Bolivian President Evo Morales, who stopped in Venezuela on his way to the 18th Ibero-American summit, which opened Wednesday in San Salvador, predicted that “telecommunications will no longer only be a question of business, but a human right.”

The Simón Bolívar satellite, named after the Latin American independence hero, will circle the earth at an altitude of 36,000 km in an orbit to which Uruguay has rights. Its 1,300 MHz signal will reach from southern Mexico to central Argentina and Chile.

The project, partially financed by China, has cost 406 million dollars, 241 million of which went towards the construction and launch of the satellite and training of personnel, while the remaining 165 million went into two stations in the towns of El Sombrero in central Venezuela and Luepa in the southeast, which will operate the system.

The aim “is to give a boost to social projects of the Bolivarian revolution, for example in education and telemedicine, and to reduce the costs of and streamline telecommunications systems,” Minister of Science and Technology Nurys Orihuela told reporters before heading to China for the launch.

Satellite-based communication networks in Venezuela have been concentrated in the higher-income, more heavily populated northern regions. But now the new satellite will cover the poorer southern regions.

Luis Holder, the head of the project, cited the example of a remote district in the Orinoco river delta in the east, home to the Warao Indians, whose 11,000 people will benefit from a distance education programme and from telemedicine, which will make it possible for local residents to consult specialists at the best hospitals in the country.

Orihuela said isolated villages on the border with Brazil or Colombia will no longer have to depend on TV and radio programming from those countries, but will now have easy access to programmes from Venezuela.

The first users of the new satellite will include the public station Canal 8 and Telesur, the pan-Latin American TV channel based in Venezuela.

“By making it possible for us to launch a number of social programmes, we are taking one more step towards independence and towards socialism” with the launch of the satellite, said Chávez.

He added that “a satellite at the service of capitalism is launched to make money, but Simón Bolívar will benefit development and the integration of our people.”

Chávez thanked Uruguay for donating the orbit, and, as he did the evening before in Ecuador, he reiterated his offer to share the benefits of the new satellite.

Under the agreement with Uruguay, in exchange for the orbit, that country will receive 10 percent of the satellite’s transmission capacity as of 2009, which will enable it to expand the coverage of its public station Canal 5, improve communications nationwide, and provide Internet access to rural areas, at no cost at all.

The Andean nations – Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela – which for decades hoped to launch a common satellite, first to be named Cóndor and then Simón Bolívar, never disbursed sufficient funds, and an orbit reserved to that end is now used by a Mexican satellite.

The Simón Bolívar was launched from the western Chinese province of Sichuan at midnight local time (shortly after noon in Venezuela) by a Chang Zheng (Long March) rocket.

It should reach its final orbit in 10 days, and in a month and a half will begin to operate along with another 3,000 satellites that are orbiting the earth.

The 5,100-kg satellite will be 28 metres wide once its solar panels are deployed. It will have a useful life of 15 years.

Venezuela ruled out possible military or espionage uses. The satellite “is transparent with respect to all of the information transmitted through it and is not designed for interference or for monitoring information,” said Holder.

“It is a social project, and has nothing to do with espionage or conflict,” said Orihuela.

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