Major Sonia Ruth Rincón Urbina, a metallurgical engineer who graduated UIS, is Head of the Aerospace Technology Research Center, CITAE.

Major Sonia Ruth Rincón is part of the team installing a tracking antenna for the FACSAT-1 satellite in Antarctica in the southern summer 2019-2020.

After finishing her career in metallurgical engineering at the Industrial University of Santander and working for a few months at Bucaramanga, Sonia Ruth Rincón sought in a call a call for an opportunity for her professional life and won it.

Thus, in 2002, this engineer born in Saravena, Arauca, but of north-American family and of bumanguesa upbringing, was selected from dozens of candidates who applied in the Colombian Air Force. There he began with the course of Officer of the Administrative Corps, number 21, from which he graduated as a sub-lieutenant in December of that same year.

He was only 24 years old and initially in the Air Maintenance Command, the highest level of the aircraft, where he remained for 12 years. For his good performance he earned the opportunity for a Colfturo-Mindefensa scholarship to do a Master’s degree in Aerospace Manufacturing for two years at Cranfield University, England. Upon her return, as Major of the Air Force, Sonia Ruth Rincón was appointed head of the Aerospace Technology Research Center, CITAE, in Cali, where since 2018 she has been leading technical-scientific aspects of the Space program, such as the monitoring and operation of facSAT-1, the institution’s first satellite.