The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, approved USD 4.6 million for the VRSS-1 (Venezuelan Remote Sensing Satellite). It is also known as ‘Miranda Satellite’. It is the second Venezuelan satellite to be built and launched from China.
The VRSS-1 is expected to be in orbit between September and October 2012, announced the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Jorge Arreza, during a visit of the company Chemical Biotechnology for Social Service (Quimbiotec), in Miranda state.
The development of the Miranda satellite was announced by President Chávez on February 10. The Venezuelan president explained that it is a low earth orbit observation satellite, located 397 miles away from Earth. “This [satellite] means the recovering of independence, and will pave the way for recovering goods for the homeland,” he said.
In addition, Arreza said that USD 34.6 million has been approved for the Bolivarian Space Agency’s Research and Development Center, and USD 10.4 million for the development of signal decoders.
Source: venezuela-us.org