ALTER participates in the Alpha Mission, a private Andalusian that will be in orbit in 2025.

The initiative aims to get Andalusian companies to join the space race

The mission has an eminently solitary character, as it aims to generate knowledge in the Andalusian region through cooperation between companies, universities, and R&D centers and to share it freely for the improvement of society. The project is promoted by ALTER, CactusSoft, Indaero Grupo Emergy, the Chamber of Commerce of Seville, and the universities of Seville and Cadiz, among others.

Prevention of fires, floods, and catastrophes, optimization of water use in crops, management of vehicle traffic, or measurement of economic activity in real-time through, for example, the light intensity detected in towns. Its practical applications can be manifold, affecting areas of activity such as agriculture, fisheries, and marine and livestock resources; the environment, meteorology, and climate change; renewable energies, geology, archaeology, astronomy, demography, and urban planning.

The Alpha satellite, of the CubeSat type, will operate in LEO orbit and will have an estimated lifetime of at least one year. It requires an investment of around 200,000 euros, although its development is conditional on an analysis of its technical and economic viability. The objective is to involve more private companies in financing the design and construction of this instrument. The phases of the project consist of choosing the projects, closing the budget, and starting production in 2023, a testing and problem-solving campaign in 2024, and a launch in 2025, according to the consortium partners' forecasts.

The initiative aims to get Andalusian companies to join the space race, in a context in which the so-called new space industry is expanding and allows not only large companies or even governments to launch this infrastructure into space, but also smaller companies. This is possible thanks to cheaper technology that makes it easier for private companies to manufacture them.