National Space Activities Commission

During the 1940s, Teófilo Tabanera organized a group of foreign and Argentine specialists as the Sociedad Argentina Interplanetaria, SAI (Argentine Interplanetary Society). Tabanera's efforts ensured that Argentina was the first Latin American nation to create a spaceflight organisation and in 1952 was one of the founding members of the International Astronautical Federation. Argentine Aldo Cocca was a pioneer in space law and helped originate the idea of space being the common heritage of humankind, later enshrined in United Nations treaties of the 1960s.[3]

In 1960, Tabanera was named head of the newly created Comisión Nacional de Investigaciones Espaciales CNIE (National Commission for Space Research), a forerunner agency founded in 1960.

Logo Comisión Nacional de Investigaciones Espaciales CNIE.

CNIE worked with the Argentine Air Force's Instituto de Investigaciones Aeronáuticas y Espaciales (IIAE) to develop a number of indigenous multistage high-altitude sounding rockets and missiles. Argentina was the first country in Latin America to send an object into space using an indigenously developed rocket.

During the 1970s, Argentina regularly launched the American two-stage solid-propellant Castor rocket up to 500 kilometers altitude. This rocket carried international experiments for several countries.

In the 1970s the CNIE signed an agreement with the French Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) (English: National Centre for Space Studies) to create and implement the EOLO Program. It would involve the launch of 500 stratospheric air balloons into the Earth's stratosphere to study the dynamics of air displacement. The stratosphere is the second major layer of Earth's atmosphere, just above the troposphere, and below the mesosphere. The stratosphere is stratified (layered) in temperature, with warmer layers higher and cooler layers closer to the Earth; this increase of temperature with altitude is a result of the absorption of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation (shortened UV) by the ozone layer. In October 1968, a committee of French studies (from the CNES) visited the airport to conduct a survey and trace maps and planes, planning to carrying out a bi-national project called EOLO that involved launching from three bases in Argentina (Mendoza, Neuquén, and Tierra del Fuego), small super pressure balloons which would be interrogated by a satellite during its flight. Once checked the appropriate soil conditions, in April of the following year, the Command-in-Chief of the Argentinian Air Force formally requested to the Mendoza provincial State a grant the loan of a portion of land located in the north side of the airport, to establish the station. As requested, the province gave the land required as free loan extended for five years. After that time, the remaining facilities would be taken by the local government. The program, from the CNIE's side, was initially managed from the Argentine Air Force Condor Headquarters in Buenos Aires by EE Ingeniero Enrique Setaro, Upon the starting of the operational phase of the program the CNIE replaced him with an Air Force officer.

In the 1980s, Argentina took part in a multinational effort to develop the Condor missile. Under United States pressure, the Condor program was cancelled in 1991. The associated development and production facilities at Falda del Carmen were closed down, the Fabrica Militar de Aviones, which concentrated on development of surveillance satellites for Earth resource and environmental monitoring.

The present commission (CONAE) was created on 28 May 1991, during the government of Carlos Menem, after the cancellation of the military Condor missile program in an attempt to move all the commission efforts to civilian purposes. It received the Air Force aerospace facilities in Córdoba and Buenos Aires of the former CNIE, as well as some of the civil personnel involved in the cancelled project.

Since the 1990s the new commission signed agreements with NASA and European agencies and has developed a number of Earth Observation satellites, including SAC-A, the failed mission SAC-B, and the SAC-C launched in 2000 and still operating.

The administration of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner renationalised Fabrica Militar de Aviones in 2009 and the Falda del Carmen facility has been reactivated to support the development of the new Tronador II rocket. Defense missile and rocket development has been restarted under the umbrella of CITEFA.

Responsible for the tracking, command and control (TT&C) of the Argentine satellites, and for the ingestion, cataloging and archiving of satellite data products. CONAE's Córdoba Ground Station (ETC) has been in operation since 1997. It has capacity for data reception and TT&C. Currently, it receives data from 12 international satellites, besides the data from Argentine missions. The National Space Program foresees the setting up of a second ground station in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego Province, at the southern tip of Argentina, to enable the collection of data on the Antarctic continent.[4]

Responsible for planning, commands elaboration and monitoring the Argentine satellites. Today the SAC-C Mission Operation Center is fully operative and SAC-D mission operation centre is being implemented in order to control the SAC-D/Aquarius satellites launched on 10 June 2011.

In charge of integrating domestic satellites and running environmental and qualification tests.

For the promotion of advanced knowledge and innovative use of space information, it also aims at developing highly skilled human resources. It has been named in honor of former CONAE physicist Mario Gulich, who conceived the first Argentine satellite for scientific applications: the SAC-B. Mr. Gulich died in 1994.

The SAC series has been developed by the CONAE together with the Argentine company INVAP and a number of local universities, in close cooperation with the NASA. It has also included the participation of Brazil, Denmark, Italy and Germany.

In 2019, five Argentine satellites have been launched: SAC-A, a technological demonstration satellite, SAC-B, which was devoted to scientific research, SAC-C, the first Earth Observation Satellite of Argentina, SAC-D and SAOCOM 1A.[18]

In this context, CONAE has joined efforts with NASA in the creation of the First International Earth Observation Constellation, with Argentine SAC-C and the U.S. Landsat 7, EO-1 and Terra missions.[19]

The satellite launched by CONAE was SAC-D/Aquarius, which was launched on 10 June 10, 2011.[20] It will carry the NASA-provided Aquarius mission for taking measurements of sea salinity which will contribute to the better understanding of the environment, together with CONAE-provided sensors which will contribute to monitoring possible fire focuses.[21]

SAC-A view from the Space Shuttle

• SAC-A: 3 December 1998 (Space Shuttle). Conceived to test systems and as a technological model.
• SAC-B: 4 November 1996 (Pegasus rocket). The first Argentine scientific satellite, whose main goal was the study of solar physics and astrophysics. Launching problems prevented it from been deployed in orbit. As it was still attached to the rocket, it could not extend its solar panels and was only operated while the batteries lasted.
• SAC-C: 21 November 2000 (Delta rocket). Still operational. Launched as part of the AM Constellation together with NASA's Landsat 7, TERRA and EO-1. Carries a Multispectral mid-resolution sensor (MMRS), a high resolution technological camera (HRTC), a high sensitivity camera (HSTC) and the GPS Occultation and Passive reflection experiment (GOLPE). All instruments where provided by CONAE except GOLPE, which was provided by NASA.
• SAC-D/Aquarius: SAC-D was launched on 19 June 2011.[20] Part of a cooperation program between CONAE and NASA (Goddard Space Flight Center and JPL). It carries seven instruments to study the environment, and a technology demonstration.
• SAOCOM 1A: 8 October 2018 by a Falcon 9 of SpaceX. It is an Earth observation satellite.

• SABIA-Mar 1 (SAC-E): launch in 2024.[22] Satellite for the observation and information recollection on water and food on the Mercosur area, developed together with the Brazilian Space Agency.[23]
• SAC-F: Unknown launch date.[24]

A SAOCOM SAR antenna.

On the other hand, the SAOCOM series involves the construction of two missions with an L-band full polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) as main payload, with Belgium and Italian partnership.[25]

• SAOCOM: Under development. Satellite that will carry a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), and will be part of a constellation of other satellites in partnership with the Italian Space Agency (ASI).

The SARE satellites are under study. They will weigh around 200 kg and employ nanotechnology.