New and more economical applications of small satellites made me think that it was not too difficult for my country, Guatemala, to come into space activities. This inspiration came from recent participation in the 61st International Astronautical Congress (Prague, October 2010) and mainly from the presentation of Ms. Rei Kawashima in the VI Space Conference of the Americas (Hidalgo, Mexico, November 2010). Ms. Kawashima did a very inspirational presentation showing that CanSat is the very first step of space activities for developing countries.
The objectives of the program were accomplished and succeeded my expectations by far. Even we could not make the final launch due to the situation caused by the earthquake I think that the training fulfilled the objectives. A very important aspect is the sincere friendship relations we did within our classmates, professors and the rest of the CLTP staff, showing us that despite of our cultural differences, friendship feelings and willingness to help are always the same regardless of the place we are in the world.
CanSat Program is a must for every developing country who wants to take part of space activities. I also think that nowadays developing space career for building human capacity in space is not an option and CanSat is the best way to start.
According to above statement, we in Guatemala are working according to the following strategy:
The above described activities are necessary to create a good environment for the development of a CanSat Program. It is worth to mention that ACAE has made very good advances in activities a), c) and d). We are also starting to work in activities b, e and the CanSat program itself. We believe that the above described environment will ensure a successful and long lasting development in space for Central American Region.