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BRIEF HISTORY OF THE Download PowerPoint presentation HERE -On June 8, 2007, Ronnie Nader, MS, Prof. completes the Advanced Suborbital Astronaut Training Program on the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center on the Russian Federation, the program was designed to train a scientist to perform research during short term suborbital space flight. -As stated in his official communiqué of March 16 2007, the Ecuadorian Air Force (FAE) General Commander sent his delegate to Russia to officially recognize the first Ecuadorian astronaut and imposes the ASA/T astronaut wings to Nader. The Ecuadorian President congratulates him as well as the Russian Ambassador in Ecuador. -On August 29 2007, Nader publishes the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Program for the next 10 years and announces the creation of the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency, during the announcement, the Russian Federation Ambassador in Ecuador Mr. Valentin Bogomazov and the General Commander of the Ecuadorian Air Force (FAE) stands besides him. -On October 12 the Ecuadorian government grants Nader the Medal “Example of Youth” -On November 1 2007, the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency, EXA is created. It becomes the first ever space agency in the history of the country. -On the same month, EXA proposes the Project DAEDALUS to FAE, the making of the first microgravity plane in Latin America, using a device known as the PCMG-Mk1 developed entirely by EXA to compute in real time the exact parabola the plane must follow. FAE accepts to participate in the project with EXA as the project leader and commits the necessary resources, the project is deemed classified. -On November 19 2007 EXA join FAE in organizing the first local space camp in the city of Riobamba -On March of 2008, 6 medium-sized meteorites fall over Ecuadorian coastal territory, on a time span of 7 days in an area of 40 km of radius, EXA is called upon by the Ecuadorian government to investigate and its findings are deemed classified by the Air Force. -On April 10 2008, EXA and FAE jointly fly the EXA/FAE-01 microgravity research mission, the first mission for Project DAEDALUS, on board of a Mirage F1JE combat jet, the FAE pilot Xavier Coral and the EXA astronaut Ronnie Nader commanding the mission perform the flight with the PCMG-Mk1 in order to test the capabilities of the device which guides the plane to sustain 21 parabolas with 501 seconds of microgravity between +0.0006 and -0.0003G becoming the firsts to achieve such feat in the Latin American region. FAE grants the rank of Mission Commander to Nader. -On the same month EXA starts the Project POSEIDON, the biomedical research of children working in microgravity environments, for this purpose, it develops a variable gravity training program for children between 17 and 7 years old, 3 children are chosen to begin training. -Based on biometric readings of the previous missions EXA develops a Microgravity Induction Program, which is successfully tested during the next missions with subjects very sensitive to motion sickness, achieving the feat of zero motion sickness during all the missions in all the subjects -On May 6 2008 EXA and FAE jointly fly the EXA/FAE-02 microgravity research mission, second and final mission for Project DAEDALUS, on board of a Sabreliner T39 retrofitted with the PCMG-Mk2, with Col. Tirso Guerra and Col. Marcos Chiluiza as pilots and astronaut Nader as commander, the mission is successful in creating microgravity inside the plane for 18 parabolas and 165 seconds of microgravity between +0.0003 and -0.0001G giving to Ecuador the first and only microgravity plane of Latin America On May 19 2008 EXA helps UNESCO and FAE in organizing the Regional Space Camps 2008 -On June 19 2008 EXA and FAE jointly fly the EXA/FAE-06 microgravity research mission for the Project POSEIDON, that establishes the World Microgravity Record for the youngest human being, a 7-yeard old child, a delegate from Guinness World Records is present on the premises and declares the record at 11h47 am local time. -During the flight the children perform 3 different experiments and data is collected about their tasks, the children perform better than expected in microgravity, thanks to their training. -During this mission and for about a month earlier and before it, physiological and neurological data is collected from the children that is being currently being analyzed, this data registry collected from children being trained, working in microgravity and after the flight is now unique in the world. -On the same month EXA and FAE establish the PEVM/G - Ecuadorian Microgravity Flight Program, aimed to encourage the scientific interest in the young students and to continue the biomedical research in microgravity conditions -On September 29 2008 the general assembly of the International Astronautical Federation, meeting in Glasgow, UK during its 59th Congress adopts EXA as a new member with the status of Space Agency. -On October 22 EXA publishes de HIPERION report, a 1 year field study analyzing the latest 28 years of data from 10 satellites and more than 200 ground stations around the world and 2 ground stations on Ecuadorian territory, the study concludes that the ozone layer over the tropics is damaged and as result extreme levels of UV radiation are hitting Ecuadorian territory. -EXA also implements the Reactive Alert Network HIPERION, a real time alert system protecting more than 4 million people by giving them real time and accurate information about UV radiation levels. -On March 2009 EXA start the HERMES project, the first Internet-to-Orbit gateway and the most sensible ground station in the country, the station is named HERMES-A//MINOTAUR, this project is designed as the pre-requisite for project PEGASUS -On September 8 2009, the UN-OOSA invites the EXA to present Project HERMES into the Small Satellites for Sustainable Development Conference which officially becomes the first Internet-to-Orbit gateway, Cmdr Ronnie Nader is invited to the press conference on the National Academy of Science in Graz, Austria and trains representatives of 34 countries in the use of Project HERMES. On November 19 2009, EXA presents the A SATELLITE IN CLASSROOM program, based on the Delta operation mode of the HERMES-A/MINOTAUR gateway, the first program in the world that puts a real satellite in the classrooms of elementary schools, making possible for the first time that school children can download images from weather satellites in real time. The Academia Cotopaxi in Quito and the Ecomundo in Guayaquil becomes the first schools in the world to be able to work satellites in their classrooms. -On April 2010 the EXA Directorate approves project PEGASUS, the building of the first Ecuadorian satellite. -On April 4, 2011, a year later, EXA present the NEE-01 PEGASUS, Ecuador's first satellite, completely built and designed in house with national capitals thanks to the support of QUICORNAC, a local industry, PEGASUS becomes the first satellite of its class to be able to send live video from space, to have an anti radiation shield, to have the largest power array ever installed in a satellite of that size and to bear the thinnest solar panel arrays with only 1.5mm thickness, the project leader was Ronnie Nader alongside Sidney Drouet, Hector Carrion, Manuel Uriguen and Ricardo Allú On May 17, 2011 The National Assembly awarded the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency – EXA with the VICENTE ROCAFUERTE National Medal to Scientific Merit for its outstanding and longstanding labor in designing and developing the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Program On July 21, 2011, ClydeSpace, the company building the UKUBE-1 satellite for the British Space Agency announces that 8 structural parts made of titanium and designed and built by the EXA in Ecuador will be part of the spacecraft. It is the first time in history that an Ecuadorian institution reaches this level of quality and technology, needed to export parts for foreign satellites. The engineering team that made this possible was Ronnie Nader, Sidney Drouet and Manuel Uriguen. On October 2011, during the 62nd International Astronautical Congress, held in Cape Town, South Africa, EXA is invited to become member of the Dual Use Space Technologies subcomitee of the International Astronautical Federation, due the development of the technologies ARGOS, CYCLOPS and NEMEA, created for the PEGASUS class satellites. -On December 13, 2011, in the Auditorium of the Air War College in the Mariscal Sucre Air Base in Quito of the Ecuadorian Air Force, EXA and ISIS sign a contract to launch the NEE-01 PEGASO aboard a Dnepr rocket RS20 from the Dombarovski Cosmodrome near Yasny, Russia in late September 2012, EXA and FAE also signed a cooperation agreement to operate the satellite together. On August 2012 the building and testing of the NEE-02 KRYSAOR is completed, this is a PEGASUS class spacecraft and the second Ecuadorian satellite, On September 2012 the first launch delay of the NEE-01 is announced for November 20 of this same year. On October 30 the EXA receives the SCIENTIFIC MERIT Award from the M.I. Municipality of Samborondon, the city were the laboratory were the NEE-01 and NEE-02 satellites were created, Ronnie Nader receives the award from the hands of the city Mayor in the name of EXA. On November 13 the second launch delay is announced for NEE-01 due a delay in the launch queue of RS20 rockets from Dombarovski On February of 2013 both satellites are qualified for spaceflight on board Russian and Chinese vectors by the Netherlands company ISL-ISIS On April 25, 2013 at 23h13 local time, onboard a LM2D rocket taking off from the JiuQuan Cosmodrome the NEE-01 PEGASO launches into space, 13 minutes later is injected into orbit and more than 4 hours later a radio amateur relays the first signal to CCVE ground control in Guayaquil, The National Government transmits the launching operation in national TV and the President sits in the CCVE ground control, commanding the mission is Cmdr. Ronnie Nader who declares mission success at 23h27 with the historic words "Welcome to the sky PEGASO, Welcome to space Ecuador" On May 16, 2013 at 10h39 local time, from the Space flight Control Center in Samborondon the first public live video feed from NEE-01 PEGASUS is received and injected into the Internet, the mission director, Cmdr. Ronnie Nader, establishes the link with the satellite and receives it with the words "Welcome home PEGASO". The satellite transmits video and audio signals through EarthCam.com via Internet, it is reported that more than 3 million people around the world watched its transmission On the night of May 22, 2013 EXA is notified by the JSpOC of USSTRATCOM of the close approach for NEE-01 PEGASUS with the SCC-15890 object, the remains of a Russian Tsyklon-3 rocket launched in July of 1985, EXA finds out by sources in Russia that this object travels surrounded by a cloud of small particles and debris, and in the night of May 23 2013, at 00h38m17s NEE-01 passes through this cloud, probably coalmining with small particles and losing attitude control violently. Surprisingly, NEE-01 survives the event and electronics remain 100% operative, due the heavy ant radiation shielding known as NEMEA and invented by EXA, but the HERMES-A ground station is unable to decode the transmission due a huge polarity error, After 5 days of monitoring and evaluation EXA finds out that the satellite is recoverable, on May 28 the Mission Directorate starts the PERSEUS recovery operation, with a nominal duration of 3 months. In July 2013, EXA's Space Operations team realizes that it will not be possible to recover the signal of the NEE-01 from ground, but it should be possible to do that from an space based platform, then begins the PERSEUS project: The design, construction, installation and testing of a micro repeater unit onboard de NEE-02, which was being readied to be launched in November. In August 28, EXA concludes the signal recovery operation for the NEE-01 PEGASUS, which transmitted successfully until May 23 before sustaining a close approach with debris from an old soviet rocket, the satellite is put into hibernation mode, but not completely shutdown, its reentry into the atmosphere is predicted for the year 2023. November 21, 2013 at
02h10m11s local time, the NEE-02 KRYSAOR, second Ecuadorian satellite
lifts off towards the orbit onboard a Russian Dnepr RS20B, this launch
becomes world record for injecting 33 satellites into orbit at once, at
02h25m13s the NEE-02 KRYSAOR is delivered into its planned orbit. It
carries onboard the PERSEUS device. -In July 2015 Ronnie
Nader is elected member of the prestigious International Academy of
Astronautics IAA and became the first Ecuadorian to access this organism
in its history. On May 14, 2016, 3 weeks before the deadline EXA delivers the parts to the IRVINE Cubesat STEM program in the city of Irvine, California, USA. -In September 2016 during the IAC2016 in Mexico, The Latin American and Caribbean Regional Group elects Ronnie Nader as its vice president. -In March 2017 during the 1st IAA Latin American Conference on Advanced Satellite Technology in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Academy elects Ronnie Nader to preside over the Latin American Project session, the first time in history that an Ecuadorian Is chosen for this role in the history of the IAA. -In September 2017 Ronnie Nader was elected Lifetime Member for the International Academy of Astronautics IAA at the engineering section, in the same date he is elected President of the Latin American and Caribbean Regional Group - IAF GRULAC. -In January 2018, the American consortium ICSP (Irvine Cubesat STEM Program) instructs EXA to design, build and test a LASER transmitter for earth-orbiting communication, in the frequency of 450 nanometers and to be integrated in the satellite IRVINE02, the challenge is to deliver it in less than 30 days, EXA delivers it in 29 days, the device is named PLM-01, Ferox-class, when placed in orbit, it becomes the first cubesat to use LASER to communicate from orbit with its base on Earth. -On August 21, 2018, the
President of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, announces by national TV and radio
broadcast the elimination of the Ecuadorian Space Institute - IEE after 6
years of existence and 36 million dollars of budget, the reason is having
produced no tangible results for the country. -On December 4, 2018, IRVINE02 is launched into space on board the SSO-A mission of the SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket and financed by NASA. The next day, stations around the world report having made contact with the satellite. the second mission of a USA satellite manufactured with Ecuadorian parts provided by EXA (60%), these include the UMPPT extended power module and the first blue LASER communication module ever mounted on a cubesat. -On April 11, 2019, the Ecuadorian president, Lenin Moreno signs the executive decree extinguishing the IEE officially and effectively, curiously, exactly 8 years after the official presentation of the NEE-01 PEGASUS, first Ecuadorian satellite. -On May 21, 2019 EXA is selected as the main contractor for Project K. -On October 23, 2019, during the International Astronautical Congress in Washington DC, Spacebit UK announces that it has selected EXA as the primary contractor for developing a small robot that will walk on the moon on the second half of 2021. -On October 24, in a
plenary meeting in Washington DC, the American Institute for Aeronautics
and Astronautics Technical Committee for Nuclear and Future Flight
Propulsion asks Ronnie Nader to join this prestigious TC. -On December 17 during the NFFP bi-monthly meeting, Ronnie Nader proposes the creation of a task force with the sole purpose of producing the designs of an engine capable of reaching a top speed of 2% of the speed of light, in the next 10 years. The idea is that this development will allow mankind to reach the worlds of the solar system in a practical time frame, not having to wait years but just weeks to travel to those worlds, thus opening up the practical colonization of the solar system to humanity. -On January 15, 2020, this
task force is created by the NFFP and christened as the Practical
Interplanetary Propulsion Group and Ronnie Nader is chosen as its first
chairman. -In 2021, EXA starts designing, testing, manufacturing and exporting parts for micro satellites up to 300Kg, space tugs and rockets
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