The INTA was established in 1942, as the National Institute of Aeronautical Technology (Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeronáutica), and it was integrated in the Ministry of the Air.[2] It has its headquarters in Torrejón de Ardoz, near Madrid.
Its budget, €190million in 2019, comes from the Spanish Ministry of Defence and from its own projects with the industry. In 2001, it had 1153 R&D staff with 325 full-time equivalent researchers.[3] As of 2017, INTA had a total of 1500 employees,[4] 80% of them are dedicated to R&D activities.[5][6]
Main objectives of the Nano-satellites and Mini-satellites programmes;
R&D programmes in the field of small satellites from 20kg to 150kg started in 1997 after MiniSat-1 launch, to keep running internat space activities at INTA.
The systems and subsystems are mainly developed at INTA with collaborations in the R&D work with several universities and other institutions in Spain
Development of multimission Service Modules compatible with available launchers: up to 150kg and 60x60x80cm.
Other specific tasks or satellite units to the small business Spanish industries, to encourage their participation in space technology.
Give flight opportunities to the Spanish research community at an affordable budget target each 3–4 years, for new experiments and instruments, in orbit demonstration technologies, earth observation and space exploration from Low Earth orbit.
Minisat 01 weighted 190kg and was launched on board of a Pegasus rocket[9] over the Canary Islands in April 1997.
Nanosat 01 project was created to continue with the Spanish space program of low cost satellites. It was finally put into orbit by the Ariane 5 launch vehicle in December 2004.
Nanosat 1B was launched 5 years later on board of a Dnepr.[10] Parallel to this research activity, a new research line was opened with MicroSat-1, which is a bit heavier at just above 100kg and was scheduled to be launched in early 2012. NanoSat-2 SeoSat (Spanish Earth Observation Satellite) are also part of the INTA R&D projects.
OPTOS is the most recent addition to INTA's small satellites line.[11] OPTOS is based on the CubeSat standard (a 3U platform) but goes far beyond the usual approach for this kind of satellites. It was designed, developed and tested with a completely professional methodology as it is conceived as a technology demonstrator with the target of proving that a satellite of that size can carry out dedicated missions as bigger satellites. It was launched in November 2013 by means of a Dnepr rocket[12] and had a service life of 3 years.[13]
Paz is an observation and reconnaissance satellite launched on 22 February 2018 operated jointly with Hisdesat
Ingenio was an optical imaging satellite destroyed during its launch in November 2020.
Anser
All these satellites are totally Spanish in manufacture and design, comprising a low-cost multiuse platform, with modular design subsystems and standard interfaces with the payload module.
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€196 million (2023)
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