The launch will take place at 6:48 pm (Lisbon time) from the Vandenberg space base in California, United States.

PoSAT-2, from LusoSpace, and Prometheus-1, from the University of Minho, are the fourth and fifth Portuguese satellites to be sent into space, after the nanosatellites ISTSat-1 and Aeros MH-1, in 2024, and the microsatellite PoSAT-1, in 1993.

PoSAT-2, the first of a constellation of 12 microsatellites for monitoring maritime traffic, was entirely built at LusoSpace's facilities in Lisbon.

The launch of the device was scheduled for October, but, as explained by the executive director of LusoSpace, Ivo Yves Vieira, "one of the SpaceX launchers suffered a problem last year and the American authorities demanded an investigation".

"And this ended up delaying all other launches", he explained to Lusa today.

PoSAT-2, which costs around one million euros, will allow data to be received on the location of ships and will have a new communication system that will allow vessels in the middle of the ocean to, in particular, receive bad weather alerts or possible pirate threats and send distress messages.

The satellite will be positioned just over 500 kilometres above Earth, above the International Space Station, the astronauts' "home" and laboratory.

The satellite's first contacts with Earth are expected in April.

The remaining 11 microsatellites in the constellation will be built in 2025, but not all of them will be launched this year as planned.

"Some will be launched at the end of the year and others at the beginning of 2026. The calendar is not yet precise", acknowledged Ivo Yves Vieira.

By choosing the name PoSAT-2, LusoSpace wanted to pay "tribute" to PoSAT-1, the first Portuguese satellite sent into space, in 1993, and "to the people who took it forward", in the words of the aerospace engineering company executive.

"I myself participated in PoSAT-1. It was thanks to PoSAT-1 that I entered the space sector. It was thanks to this satellite that I learned a lot about space. PoSAT-2 is not at all similar to PoSAT-1, but "It is the first satellite that LusoSpace, of which I am a founder, has produced and will launch. LusoSpace would not exist if there had not been PoSAT-1", Ivo Yves Vieira previously told Lusa.

The LusoSpace microsatellite constellation, which involves the contribution of other companies in the sector, has a total cost of 15 million euros, with 10 million being contributed by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) within the scope of the "New Space Portugal Agenda".

This agenda "aims to transform the specialisation profile of the Portuguese space sector with new, innovative, exportable products and services of greater technological complexity".

According to Ivo Yves Vieira, small satellites like these will be useful in the future for autonomous maritime navigation.

Prometheus-1, the second nanosatellite to be built by a Portuguese university institution, after ISTSat-1, by the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), in Lisbon, was designed as a "teaching tool" for students of aerospace, electrical or telecommunications, which will be able to "perform command and control activities" or "work with replicas".

The tiny satellite, which is similar in size to a Rubik's cube, will be positioned approximately 500 kilometres above Earth and was created in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University in the United States and IST.