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Santiago Satellite Station, Chile

In 1994, China Satellite Measurement and Control Department cooperated with the company's predecessor, the Space Research Center of the University of Chile, to rent the company's equipment to carry out satellite measurement and control work, and then established the San Diego China Satellite Ground Control Station in 2008.

The Center for Space Studies (CEE) celebrated in 1999 its 40th anniversary. It was established as a result of an Agreement of Cooperation between the Government of Chile and the US, in which the Universidad de Chile was designated as the counterpart of the US Space Agency, NASA, to implement space activities.

The Satellite Tracking Station in Santiago (a 100 hectares site) has provided telemetry, tracking and command support (TT&C) to more than 350 space missions. These missions belong to agencies such as NASA of the United States of America; NASDA and ISAS of Japan; the European Space Agency, ESA; the German agency, DLR; the French agency, CNES and the Chinese agency, CLTC. In recent years CEE has worked with international private companies for hosting remote ground control stations, and offering support in other space services.

The Swedish Space Corporation’s (SSC) history with civil space agencies dates back to 1958 with the establishment of the Santiago Ground Station, which SSC purchased in 2008, to support NASA. The purchase includes the complete Santiago Satellite Station with all equipment and the transfer of all existing contracts. The management of the station remains the same and all 60 staff will be retained. "The Santiago Satellite Station has a very good reputation for its services and for its experienced personnel, says Mikael Stern, General Manager of the Satellite Operations Division, SSC. The station serves mainly the same customers as we do at our satellite station at Esrange Space Center in Northern Sweden, and through our global ground station network, PrioraNet".

"To set up a Chilean subsidiary is an important step in our efforts to go global", said Lars Person, CEO of SSC. "We will now have operations in five countries and more than 170 staff members outside of Sweden."

In May 2010, CLTC (China the Satellite the Launch & Tracking Control General) visited SSC Santiago Station to Sign an Agreement for the Construction of the Civil Works for the CLTC 10 Meter C-Band Antenna at the Station. On this occasion, CLTC also handed over the system maintenance and operations responsibilities of their existing S-band station at Santiago to SSC Chile and granted two SSC engineers certifications to handle the antenna terminal.

On August 3, 2010, Ambassador Lu Fan of Chile, General Manager of the Chilean Branch of the Swedish Space Company, Marcello Bernel Invited, led some librarians to visit the company's headquarters in the suburbs of San Diego, listened to the company's history of extension, development and major business work, visited the antenna tower, the main control room and other satellite monitoring and control facilities, and with Marseille Mr. Ronald Bernel and others had a discussion and exchange.

Ambassador Lu spoke highly of the long-standing good relationship between the company and China's satellite measurement and control department. He expressed his gratitude for their consistent support for China's aerospace industry and said that with China's manned space flight, lunar exploration, Beidou navigation system construction and other aerospace projects. With the in-depth development, the cooperation between the two sides in the field of satellite measurement and control will be further deepened and strengthened.

In order to ensure the safety of outbound activities, Shenzhou Flight added a monitoring station in Chile, which brings the total number of foreign monitoring stations to four. After the “Chang'e-1” mission, the reliability of the domestic station was tested. At the same time, due to the completion and construction of the Santiago Station in Chile, the “Chang'e II” mission no longer used the Xinnuoshe Station and the Chilean CEE Station.

On 01 October 2010, the Chilean Santiago Control Station, which is affiliated to the Xi'an Center, immediately tracked and measured satellites, received satellite telemetry data, sent remote control commands to the satellites, and transmited various measurement data to the Beijing Center and Xi'an Center. Because the rocket directly sent the satellite into the ground-to-month transfer orbit, the data arc segment was short, and the rapid orbit determination became a severe test for the measurement and control technology of the "Chang'e II" satellite mission.