It was launched on 11 December 1999 from the INPE base in Alcântara, Maranhão, by the Brazilian VLS-1 V02 rocket.

The name was officially an acronym of Satélite de Aplicações CIentíficas ("Scientific Applications Satellite"), but was obviously taken from the Saci character of Brazilian folklore.

Besides being a technology testbed, it carried four scientific payloads (PLASMEX, MAGNEX, OCRAS and PHOTO), with a total weight of 10 kg, to investigate plasma bubbles in the geomagnetic field, air glow, and anomalous cosmic radiation fluxes.

It was meant to circle the Earth on a circular orbit at 750 km altitude, inclined 17.5 ° from the Equator.

The spin-stabilized spacecraft carried two S-band communication links (a 2W, 256 kb/ s downlink and 19.2 kbit/s uplink), and a 48 MB solid state data recorder.