Brazil has its own legal time, backed by a 1913 statute and atomic clocks at the National Observatory. But the rules that oblige the financial and power sectors to synchronize say nothing about where the signal must come from — and in practice it comes from constellations the country does not control.
In 2026 there are more than 11,000 Starlink satellites in orbit and no inhabited region left without possible coverage. Brazil is buying a geostationary satellite anyway. That is not a contradiction: the three altitudes solve different problems.
I took part in the 6th Espaço em Pauta webinar, run by Brazil's Institutional Security Cabinet, on space as an element of national strategic autonomy, representing Telebras. The lens of the Brazilian Defense College helps explain why this is a matter for senior management, not only for engineering.