Help Costa Rica team get to Rome

ur Costa Rica team has been selected to participate in PreMIC5 in Rome, a competition for the design of satellites with missions addressing one or more of the 17 Sustainability goals proposed by UN. Due to the high costs of assisting the competition, we are looking for your help in order to attend this event held on December from 2 to 4th.

Who we are

We are a team of 9 people, students from engineering and science majors at University of Costa Rica. From 200 satellite projects 6 were selected on a latinoamerican level, these 6 finalists had to present their work at Mexico on October 2, 2017. At Mexico we were selected as the best of the 6 projects, we won the right to attend to Rome, nonetheless the price did not include financial support for our team, this is why we are asking for your help, every dollar counts.

What is preMIC5

"The Mission Idea Contest (MIC) was established in 2010 to provide aerospace engineers, college students, consultants, and anybody interested in space with opportunities to present their creative ideas and gain attention internationally. The primary goal of MICs is to open a door to a new facet of space exploration and exploitation." The competition consists in 6 teams from different countries and regions and this year will be held in Rome, Italy. This year Japan, USA, Germany, Italy, Mexico and for the first time Costa Rica is participating in the competition. In order to get to the workshop in Rome, all teams had to go through local competitions, in our case representing all Latin America since we got selected winners in a competition which took place in Guadalajara, Mexico. This year PreMIC will be held on Rome, Italy as part of the annual UNISEC meeting from December 2 to December 4. PreMIC is of crucial importance for a small country like ours, since we are taking our first steps in the space industry.

http://www.spacemic.net/

Why do we want to go

PreMIC5 has a lot of benefits to our team, our country Costa Rica, and our region Latin America. In LatinAmerica most countries are recently starting out with space endevours. Therefore PreMIC5 could result in being that "propellant" that allows us to reach the stars and join this vibrant community of space nations. Also of crucial importance is the "networking" that will be developed in Rome, specially for a country which does not have enough capital to invest in the development of the space industry. Additionally we believe that our project Reti-SAT can be of relevance to the international community, since it´s solving a critical aspect in today´s environmental and socio-economical situation. Rome will be great for the advancement of satellite, because it will allow us to receive feedback.

What is our project about

Our project is a small satellite that will contribute with the prevention and monitoring of red tide blooming on Central America coasts. This is important because red tide has a very high toxicity that affects anything that is near it, because of this many people are affected, not just because it is toxic to humans, but also to the ecosystem that are within its grasp, many of the toxins are able to travel by air and in the meat of dead fish, affecting businesses like tourism and fishing and if you take into account that many of the central America economies depend on their coasts the impact of phenomenon like red tide is incredibly big.

Our satellite includes 3 cameras that will allow to take high resolution pictures that will give our researchers the ability to predict an algae bloom before it happens, giving communities near the affected area enough time to gather supplies and avoid health complications caused by the red tide toxicity. Reti-SAT first version renders:

What we are going to cover with this funds

We are going to cover from this funds:

• Plane Tickets
• Registration Fees
• Lodging
• Food
• Transport

Thank you for your support, it means a lot to us and..