Funds for Argentine space sector

(Buenos Aires, January 19, 2012).- To develop Argentina’s scientific and technical capability and increase productivity and competitiveness in the country, CAF - Latin American development bank - announced approval of US$70 million for the first phase of the National Space Sector Integrated Development Project.

The operation is part of the National Space Program which promotes conditions for the construction, development and launch of orbital satellites developed under the concept of segmented architecture.

The earth observation satellites, which weigh between 200 and 400 kilograms, act as a constellation, generating multiple benefits in terms of cost, time, risk, adaptation and logistics.

CAF representative director in Argentina �lvaro Garc�a said “specifically the aim is to meet the requirements of ground and communication infrastructure in order to increase the productivity and competitiveness of the satellite sector with a view to making more efficient use of satellite data in productive activities such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, hydrology, environmental protection, natural disasters mitigation, and tourism."

This project, which will have national impact, consists of improving the country’s capability for developing satellite materials and components with space quality, expanding the capacity of trials to grade the materials developed and required for the launchers and satellites as space quality; building the ground communication infrastructure needed to process all the information required; and developing the ground infrastructure needed to launch the satellites from Argentina.

CAF had previously approved finance for the sector in 2010 with a US$36 million loan to Argentina to partially finance the AR-SAT Argentine Geostationary Satellite Project.