Part of the bilateral cooperation agenda on space issues of Colombia and the United States was fulfilled at the Space Operations Center (SpOC), at the Marco Fidel Suárez Air Base, Cali, Valle del Cauca, in which Bill Nelson, Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), General Laura J. Richardson, Commander of the Southern Command and General Luis Carlos Córdoba Avendaño, Commander of the Colombian Aerospace Force, with the intention of knowing the Resources and progress made by the Institution as it works on this issue in the country.
It is important that Colombia, due to its privileged geostrategic position, conceives the domain of space as a transversal factor to all areas of knowledge in favor of development, in a timeline in which the space resources placed already in orbit as the satellites FACSAT 1 and 2 Chiribiquete and the projection of the 3rd satellite, have the mission of capturing images that are studied by specialized institutions for decision-making, such as countering the consequences of climate change and protecting the Amazonas region, among other global interests of the State.
In such a way that the SpOC-FAC integrates data production and Big Data analysis, in addition to having functional areas built for the command, control and execution of space operations, equipped with state-of-the-art equipment with an interface, which integrates the resources of the FACSAT program to the multidomain display- Horus (FAC Command and Control System), implementation that grants the ability to conduct satellite tracking and orbit prediction in real time.
Bilateral cooperation with other countries is transcendental in this matter, by materializing the Resources of the Institution in the space domain, based on permanent research and innovation, in order to comply with the roadmap that was drawn up for the country in the Strategy for Air and Space Development 2042, protected by Law 2302 of July 12, 2023.
In this way, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson sent a greeting to the Colombian Aerospace Force on its way through the SpOC: “Congratulations for uniting the Air Force and space into a joint aerospace force. I think it's the right direction, because now you not only protect the country as an Aerospace Force, but in the same way use the information obtained from space to protect your territory and people.”
Source: Press – Colombian Aerospace Force
