Chavez cherishes his Chinese-built satellite
By Peter J Brown
Last October, a new Chinese-built US$241 million communications satellite
called Simon Bolivar or Venesat-1 was launched from China's Xichang Satellite
Launch Center in southwestern China on a CZ-3B rocket. It is owned by
Venezuela. Uruguay also obtained a 10% stake in this satellite because
Venesat-1 now occupies an orbital slot - essentially a parking space for a
satellite approximately around 35,900 kilometers above Earth - assigned to
Uruguay.
Thanks to this Chinese-built satellite, Venezuela's space agency - known as the
Bolivarian Agency for Space Activities - has now joined an elite group in Latin
America with working satellites. This elite includes Mexico, Brazil - which has
enjoyed strong ties for many years with China in space - and Argentina.
Venesat-1 could serve China well as a model for future satellite
projects with other developing countries. The pattern to date for China has
been to pursue space-related agreements with countries holding vast energy and
other natural resources like Brazil, Nigeria and now Venezuela. Here, the stage
may be set for China to alter its foreign policy and soft power objectives.
After all, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela described this satellite launch
as an "act of liberation".
"Venezuela and other Latin countries spend millions of dollars in satellite
services, almost all of them monopolized by big international companies," said
Chavez. "It is the domination of space, this is an act ... of independence …
Now we have a socialist satellite to construct socialism in Venezuela and
cooperate with others, which is why the satellite Simon Bolivar was created.
Congratulations."
"I think this telecommunications satellite is a human right for the nations of
South America and the Caribbean, " said President Evo Morales of Bolivia when
celebrating the satellite launch last autumn with Chavez. "And [it] should not
[be] a private enterprise."
These statements mirror the glowing comments made after another Chinese-built
satellite was launched in 2007. In that instance, T Ahmed Rufai, chief
executive officer of Nigerian Communication Satellite Ltd (Nigcomsat), which
has partnered with the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Science Technology,
described Nigeria's first communications satellite, Nigcomsat-1, as something
that might benefit all African people. He said it would help to bring new,
lower-priced services to countries throughout the region. China provided most
of the financing for this project.
The launch of Venesat-1 marked the successful culmination of a process that
began in late 2004 when Chavez made a state visit to China. In November 2005,
Wang Haibo, president of Beijing-based China Great Wall Industry Corporation
(CGWIC) and Marlene Yadira Codova, Venezuela's then minister of Science and
Technology signed a contract for Venesat-1 in Caracas - Jesse Chacon currently
serves as Venezuela's minister of Science, Technology and Medium Industries.
Chavez and Luo Ge, vice administrator of the China National Space
Administration, were in attendance, along with other dignitaries.
Venesat-1, along with other planned Chinese infrastructure projects in
Venezuela, involve a total investment of more than $4 billion. In addition,
China has been training more than 100 engineers from Venezuela to operate the
satellite network along with its complex ground equipment. Venesat-1 is
controlled by Venezuela's Ministry of Science, Technology and Medium Industries
with additional technical assistance from CANTV, Venezuela's state-owned
telecommunications company.
The primary control station is located in Venezuelan state of Guarico. The
combined price tag for this facility and a backup facility is estimated at more
than $165 million, bringing the total estimated project cost to over $400
million.
Venesat-1 is a so-called DFH-4. Over the past three years, two other DFH-4
satellites have suffered total failures including the above-mentioned
Nigcomsat-1.
For CGWIC in particular, which oversees all Chinese satellite exports and
serves as China's commercial satellite launch provider, Venesat-1 is an ideal
opportunity.
As other nations may soon want to go down this same path, and with Nigeria's
satellite - the first communications satellite that China ever sold to a
foreign country - now out of service, Venezuela operates China's only foreign
satellite communications venture. The fact that Venezuela has openly proclaimed
that this satellite would play an important role for the entire region, and
that it would not simply become another platform for satellite TV is important.
At the time of the launch, Chavez said that Venesat-1 would be used for
telecommunications, distance education, tele-medicine, and cultural programs as
part of his country's leap forward to the 22nd century.
However, these planned satellite-based services to benefit the public are just
now emerging, and the government of Venezuela admits that it is still in the
process of coordinating the use of the satellite. In July, in a lengthy e-mail
response to questions posed by this writer which was translated by a team in
Caracas, Minister Chacon discussed this situation, and other relevant matters.
"The satellite is 100% operational and ready, [and] is currently being used by
the state. Its specific uses are being coordinated at the time being. There are
currently three state TV channels broadcasting," said Chacon. "The goal is not
to commercialize the [satellite] spectrum, which is the common step in these
cases and it would make their total utilization very quick and easy. On the
contrary, the challenge for Venezuela is to cover those areas of the country
where other means of communications are not feasible, emphasizing education and
healthcare, among others."
Chacon emphasizes that from the time the Venesat-1 program was implemented,
"its main goal has been to offer the Venezuelan population telecommunication
services aimed at raising the quality of life of all citizens, especially those
excluded from communication services. [It] will strengthen the
telecommunications sector in the country, and it will also serve as a tool to
champion the cultural, educational, health related and sustainable development
values of the nation."
Given this set of objectives, it is easy to see why China would do everything
possible to contribute to the success of this project. In fact, Chacon's
response almost sounds as if it is coming from Beijing and not Caracas.
"This will allow the access of contents of popular and ancestral knowledge
while strengthening the domestic production technology and the national
sovereignty," said Chacon. "Moreover, the scope of the satellite over the
Caribbean and South America will facilitate regional integration and it will
contribute to amplify the cultural links beyond our borders."
Chacon continues to expand on something that is roughly akin to a course in
Satellite-based Development 101. Again, China embraced many of these objectives
years ago.
"With programs of tele-education and tele-medicine, [this] satellite is the
ideal platform for strengthening the educational and healthcare systems
currently in place in Venezuela," said Chacon. "Regarding the tele-education
programs, these will use the technological platform of the satellite and it
will reach inhabitants in remote locations of the country. Thus, it will
guarantee the right to education, which is written in Venezuelan constitution
[Article 102]."
As described here, this linkage of the use of satellite technology to "the
right to education" constitutes an historic first. To date, while the concept
of a comprehensive approach to distance education on a nationwide basis has
been widely discussed including in the US, only India has gone so far as to
launch its own satellite completely dedicated to distance education.
While India's Edusat satellite was launched roughly five years ago, and has
become a significant force in rural education in India after many delays for a
variety of reasons, "the right to education" has not been part of the process.
The slow progress experienced early on with Edusat in India stemmed not so much
from any lingering technical problems, but rather resulted primarily from a
combination of provincial politics, institutional roadblocks and an overall
lack of coordination.
According to Chacon, as of June 30, CANTV had deployed almost 1,200 satellite
dishes throughout the country. He said Satellite Internet services are now
available via Venesat-1 with 86% of them dedicated to education, and 7% to the
food production sector.
"This month, we are working on setting up medical clinics with the purpose of
connecting a number of hospitals in Caracas, where a group of medical
specialists will review cases sent from remote locations," said Chacon. "It is
worth mentioning that a number of ministries in Venezuela are currently working
very hard to reach 3,200 locations throughout the country by this December,
despite the rugged conditions of some of those areas that require satellite
connections."
The primary objective now is to quickly establish satellite links to
communities with 3,000 or less inhabitants, and, all facilities in the oil and
financial sectors. Chacon predicts that the new satellite network will reach
full capacity by 2012.
"The satellite is currently in the display phase of all services in the Latin
American region. That is why the coordination among governments and
international agencies is being developed. The capacity of the satellite will
not be complete until this occurs, said Chacon. "A number of complementary
strategies are being developed in order to avoid idle capacity."
According to the Unidad Reguladora de Servicios de Comunicaciones (URSEC),
Uruguay's national communications agency in Montevideo, the government of
Uruguay is not yet using its portion of Venesat-1's capacity because the
international coordination process is still underway.
"The coordination procedure has not concluded [specifically] with Argentina and
US, therefore there are no transmissions from [Uruguay] to the satellite," said
URSEC.
There is another very important dimension to this story. Several critics of
this satellite program in Venezuela and elsewhere do not believe what they are
hearing from Chacon and URSEC. These people have spent months arguing that
Venesat-1 is not operating properly, and that an official cover-up is underway.
Because only three state-owned TV channels along with a few other occasional TV
programs are being transmitted by this very large satellite, something is
seriously wrong here, their argument goes.
"No one is talking about it in official circles and the media is just waiting
for an announcement of the failure or the start of operations by year end. That
piece of junk is doomed, only politics is keeping it alive artificially," said
one critic. "They are paying thousands of US dollars for [access to
foreign-owned satellites] just for state TV, and they just renewed the contract
and wanted more space for Internet service which is currently unavailable."
Here is a one brief sample of the kind of negative comments that are constantly
made about Venesat-1.
"On Friday, the signal returned to Venezuela for the first time since July 7.
Today, gone again. We are fishing for it to find out where it went. We now
think the satellite is oscillating slowly on its axis. Who knows, mysteries are
the signature of that satellite," said one observer from Venezuela in the final
week of July.
The fact that most if not all of these critics appear to be staunch opponents
of Chavez makes the process of sorting out the facts from afar in this instance
quite a challenge.
In May, when this writer was first presented with evidence that Venesat-1 was
not operating properly, an e-mail was sent immediately to CGWIC headquarters in
Beijing to determine what was really happening. In less than an hour, the
following response arrived from Beijing.
"CGWIC hereby confirms that the VeneSat-1 satellite is under normal and healthy
operation. If anything unexpected happens to the satellite, CGWIC will keep the
public informed, just as CGWIC has done with the NigcomSat-1 satellite. On the
day following the in-orbit failure of NigcomSat-1 satellite, CGWIC immediately
released the news to the public," said a CGWIC spokesperson.
An engineer in Colombia who has monitored Venesat-1 transmissions for months,
confirms that a very small amount of TV programming is being beamed down from
Venesat-1, while at the same time, he cannot find any trace of the satellite
Internet traffic that Chacon describes. One US satellite expert concludes that
while this engineer's account raises questions, further evidence needs to be
gathered.
For now, however, despite all the reports of errant satellite operations and
absent objective and verifiable third-party data to the contrary, we must
accept Chacon's statement that the satellite is "100% operational" as well as
CGWIC's confirmation.
China is not on a fast track in terms of attracting new clients in the
developing world to its satellites. Angola, Kazakhstan and Vietnam, to name
just three, have selected Russian and US satellites in recent years. There are
other countries eagerly shopping for satellites, and replacement satellites
will always be needed in the years to come. Venezuela may provide China with
valuable insights into how the whole satellite experience can be made more
user-friendly, cost-effective and efficient.
Peter J Brown is a satellite journalist from the US state of Maine.
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