The space is, without doubt, a human achievement of the second half of the twentieth century and, probably, the most daring of the last century. All began, in the 1950s and has grown explosively during the following two decades, but decreased steadily after the 1970s. After the 1990s, we have seen a shy rebirth of space-related activities, with the entry of new actors, like China, India, Ira, South Korea, adding up the two-actor piece that we have witnessed during the so-called Cold War, USA and Russia.

In Brazil, given the continental territorial aspects of and geopolitical proportions that make difficult the handling of national needs as in the areas of telecommunications, environment changes monitoring, monitoring of the borders and sea coasts, regional inequalities reduction, even for the promotion of social inclusion, the country must have information obtained by satellites for problems solution. The achievement of such information inquires the use of space systems. In fact, the monitoring of large areas in a systematic, reliable and independent way of other systems, the data collection in areas of difficult or restricted access and rapid assessment of unpredictable events in time and location case of natural disasters, for example) cannot be achieved without the use of those systems.

For the new demands, as those presented as climate change that make the natural disasters weather more frequent and severe or the National Defense Strategy that brings the capacity of the territorial and borders monitoring to a new level, including the airspace, the Brazilian Space Program should be able to respond promptly, efficiency and effectiveness by the development of complete space systems and integrated to an soil infrastructure that allows maximum use of information by agencies and bodies responsible for various public policies addressed. To obtain this information it is necessary that Brazil has its own satellite in a geostationary orbit.

The political aspiration is still the main driving force to go into space, as it once was, but maybe a little different. Of course, during the Cold War the two challenging countries had reasons related to defense issues (rocket launch as a mean to master the technology of ballistic missiles, for example) but overall it was clear the ideological need oriented to show what was the most correct, fair and efficient. This last motive has lost its meaning in today's world, but the motivations related to the defense gained a new dimension and it is in the process of spreading around the world. Owning a satellite in geostationary orbit is now synonymous with national sovereignty, and for this reason there is now an international race in this direction, with many nations pursuing a place in this privileged area of space. The technology satellite (relative to operating systems, supply capacity, maintenance and durability) has evolved greatly, mainly because of huge advances in terms of computational capacity. What degree of importance has this development for a country like Brazil, that has continental territorial dimensions, lush natural resources, and that has a tendency to be one of the richest nations on Earth in the next century, but at the same time has needs for investment in basic areas such as hunger, health, housing, illiteracy, social exclusion, public safety and others? This is the prospecting group’s main motivation, to expose here the studies that it has been performing at the Institute in order to communicate the space activity in the world, tendencies for this sector and how the country needs to support, firstly, the Space Program so it can move forward to obtain an effective participation among the major space program like NASA, ESA, Roskosmos, CNSA, ISRO and JAXA.

The prospecting group PROSPECTA aims to carry out a prospective study to assess future tendencies for Satellite Launch Vehicles focused on the payload to be launched. This work will support the strategic planning of the Institute of Aeronautics and Space regarding the research in launch vehicles and the critical technologies.