Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais

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Satellite testing at INPE

The Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE, German: National Institute for Space Research ) is a federal Brazilian authority based in São José dos Campos (State of São Paulo )

history

INPE was founded in 1961. In the first years of its existence, investigations into the ionosphere were made , including with sounding rockets . Later the INPE also took part in the data evaluation and communication with meteorological satellites, earth observation and communication satellites.

On February 9, 1993, the Earth observation satellite SCD-1, the first Brazilian satellite of the Satelites de Coleta de Dados series, was launched by an American Pegasus rocket . In 1994 the agency Agência Espacial Brasileira (Brazilian Space Agency) was founded and has been operating the Alcântara spaceport since then . Brazil has also been involved in the International Space Station (ISS ) since 1997 .

INPE has been a member of the International Astronautical Federation since 1988 .

Analysis of deforestation in Brazil

The INPE has been monitoring the condition of Brazilian forests using satellite images since the 1970s. In 2004 it started the Real-Time Deforestation Detection System ("real-time deforestation detection system ", DETER for short; other sources call it Near Real-Time Deforestation Detection System - "almost real-time deforestation detection system "). The improved version DETER-B has been in operation since 2015. In addition, the INPE publishes a detailed analysis of deforestation in Brazil once a year as part of the Amazon Deforestation Satellite Monitoring Project (PRODES).

DETER generates an alarm as soon as more than three hectares of rainforest have been removed from a location and makes this information available to law enforcement authorities. After the start of the system, the area deforested each year fell by 80 percent until 2012, but increased again slightly in the following years.

The DETER data published for the period from January to July 2019 indicate that 4,200 square kilometers of Amazon rainforest, or 50 percent more than in the same period of the previous year, had been felled in this period . After the data became known, a public dispute arose in which Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro - in office since January 2019 - described the data as a "lie". A few days later the INPE director Ricardo Galvão was dismissed. INPE data also showed a sharp increase in forest fires in the Amazon rainforest in 2019 , which a staff member of the institute explained with slash and burn (to gain agricultural land).

management

After Galvão, the Minister of Science Marcos Pontes appointed aviation reservist Colonel Darcton Policarpo Damião as interim director of INPE in August 2019.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE). IAF, accessed August 26, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Deforestation in the Amazon is shooting up, but Brazil's president calls the data 'a lie'. In: sciencemag.org. Science , July 28, 2019, accessed August 25, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Aristos Georgiou: Brazil's Bolsonaro Blamed As Illegal Deforestation Pushes Amazon Rainforest to 'Tipping Point,' Expert Warns. In: Newsweek. July 26, 2019, accessed August 25, 2019 .
  4. ↑ tagesschau.de: Head of the authorities fired after a dispute over deforestation in Brazil. Retrieved August 25, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Christoph Gurk: Forest fire in the Amazon - fire free. Retrieved on August 26, 2019 ( report ).
  6. ↑ Diretor do Inpe segue no cargo mesmo se dados forem confirmados, diz Pontes - Sustentabilidade. In: estadao.com.br. Estadão, August 6, 2019, accessed February 19, 2020 (Brazilian Portuguese).