Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales

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Logo of the CONAE

The Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE, Spanish National Commission for Space Activities) is the space agency of Argentina . It was founded in 1991 and is subordinate to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so it is a purely civil organization. In 2011, the authority had a budget of around 72 million euros.

CONAE designs its own satellite missions in cooperation with companies such as INVAP . In addition, the medium-term goal is to set up a launch vehicle program . For this purpose, the CONDOR program, which was put on hold in the mid-1990s due to economic difficulties and international pressure, and from 1998 the Tronador program were started. The test of a first prototype of the rocket in July 2007 was successful.

CONAE is a member of the International Charter on Space and Natural Disasters .

history

The Argentine space program was founded in the 1940s with the establishment of the Sociedad Argentina Interplanetaria by Teófilo Tabanera . A few years later, a state authority emerged from this society under the name Comisión Nacional de Investigaciones Espaciales (CNIE), which at that time still depended on the Air Force , whose Institut Instituto de Investigaciones Aeronáuticas y Espaciales (later Dirección General de Desarrollos Espaciales ) with the Development of missile systems was commissioned. The first successful rocket launches took place in the late 1960s, with the Castor rocket reaching a high point in 1975. After democratization in 1983 and international pressure in the late 80s and early 90s that tried to prevent the construction of long-range missiles , the Purely civilian CONAE was founded and all programs and infrastructural facilities related to space travel were transferred to this organization. Since 1996, CONAE has developed three satellite missions of its own.

Installations

The most important center of CONAE is the Centro Espacial Teófilo Tabanera in Falda del Carmen , approx. 15 km southwest of Córdoba . This contains a control center with which the Argentine satellites are controlled, as well as a development bunker in which the Tronador project is being pursued. CONAE also operates a satellite museum in this facility.

Satellite missions

SAC

In 1996, CONAE started the SAC program together with INVAP, making it the first professional satellite program in Argentina. In 1990 the Lusat-1 satellite was launched in cooperation with ESA , but it was purely a demonstration object and was not developed by CONAE but by radio amateurs .

The SAC ( Satellite de Aplicaciones Cientifico ) satellites are research satellites with different tasks:

SAC-A after being launched by the space shuttle
  • SAC-B was launched in 1996 as the first in the series and was an astronomical satellite. The mission failed, however, because the apparatus was not disconnected from the last rocket stage and so did not supply itself with electricity and therefore the battery capacity was exhausted after only a few rounds. Nevertheless, all instruments could be tested successfully.
  • SAC-A followed in 1998, its task was to test numerous instruments for later models. The mission was carried out successfully.
  • SAC-C (2000) is used for earth observation. The satellite far exceeded its four-year lifespan and remained in service until 2007. With SAC-C, Argentina participates in the International Charter for Space and Natural Disasters .
  • SAC-D / Aquarius started in 2011 and was a cooperation project with NASA . His job was to measure the salinity of the sea and to observe forest fires and floods until it was canceled prematurely in 2015.
  • SAC-E / SABIA , which is still at an early stage of development and is being designed jointly with Brazil , will also be used for earth observation. Its start is planned for the second decade of the 21st century.
  • SAC-F / ALSAT-2 is another planned Earth observation satellite project that is being carried out jointly with Algeria .

SIASGE and the SAOCOM satellites

The SIASGE ( Sistema Italo Argentino de Gestión de Emergencias / Argentine-Italian Emergency Management System ) project is being developed in collaboration with the Italian space agency ASI . The satellites have military and civilian tasks and contain, in particular, instruments for early warning of natural disasters, such as a measuring device for measuring soil moisture.

The first satellite of the four-satellite Italian segment of this program ( COSMO-Skymed ) was launched into orbit in June 2007. The program’s satellite, SAOCOM 1A , developed by CONAE , was launched in 2018, and its sibling satellite, SAOCOM 1B, is planned for 2020.

Launchers

Since the start of the Argentine space program in the 1960s, Argentina has been trying to develop an independent launch vehicle system. Until the 1980s, however, the focus was on military use, which also drew international distrust in Argentina, particularly with regard to the Falklands War . To date, the goal of an independent launch system has not been achieved, but numerous tests with sounding rockets have succeeded . The Castor rocket reached an altitude of 470 km in 1975, making it one of the most powerful systems in the world at the time.

Two specific projects were just about to go into series production: the predominantly military CONDOR project (1983-93), which was only taken over by the newly founded CONAE towards the end, and the purely civilian TRONADOR project (from 1998, first successful start in 2007 ), which is being promoted in cooperation with Brazil and is based on the experience with CONDOR.

CONDOR

In the 1980s, the Argentine armed forces developed the CONDOR launcher, later in cooperation with the newly founded CONAE. The prototypes were developed in a bunker in Falda del Carmen near the Teófilo Tabanera space center. They were also designed for possible military use as ICBMs .

CONDOR I was completed in 1985 without CONAE participating. It was a sounding rocket with solid propulsion. A modified version called CONDOR-IA, also called Alacrán (Scorpio), was tested several times between 1988 and 1993. A two-stage prototype called CONDOR II was developed in the same years, and there were also plans for a three-stage successor CONDOR III. However, the program was put on hold by the Menem government before testing could take place. The missile was then destroyed in 1993, also under pressure from the United Kingdom , the invasion of the Falkland Islands feared and the US, which in the project because of the cooperation of Argentina with the then of Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq suspected a threat. The Iraqi Badr-2000 missile is a slightly modified version of the CONDOR II, which was further developed until the Third Gulf War . However, this was a purely military project.

Tronador

The Tronador project was conceived in 1998, but was only officially incorporated into the CONAE space program in 2004, after it was close to being terminated in 2003. It is designed for civil use only and aims at a system of light launchers for loads up to 200 kg. The reason for the program is the high costs that Argentina has to pay to other space nations to launch its own satellites, as well as the long waiting times that are usual in the industry. The aim is to build a functioning launch vehicle system in the second decade of the 21st century. The technological basis for Tronador is the CONDOR system, but the concept has been fundamentally changed. Military use of this missile is not intended and the range has been drastically reduced so as not to conflict with international regulations against long-range missiles.

The first Tronador-1 prototype was successfully launched in July 2007 for test purposes. This was not yet the required size (3.7 m) to reach a height suitable for an orbit, but was supposed to test the functionality of the engine. Tronador-2, which is very similar to the CONDOR II from the 1990s in terms of technical data, but not internal structure, is currently under development. Research from the Brazilian VBS program is incorporated, which successfully tested the VBS-30 rocket in mid-2007 , which reached an altitude of 270 km. Tronador-2, which, in contrast to Tronador 1, uses liquid fuel, is intended to enable a payload to be brought into low orbit. The first launch was planned for June or July 2014 and should bring the ARSAT-1 satellite into space. However, the first suborbital test flight of the VEx-1A demonstrator failed on February 26, 2014. Instead of the planned height of 300 m, the rocket rose only a few meters and fell back to the launch site, but without exploding. However, the launch of VEx-1B was successful on August 15, 2014 and brought the rocket to a maximum altitude of 2200 meters.

The Tronador II has the following technical data:

  • Height: 27 m
  • Diameter: 1.5 to 2.5 m
  • Total weight: 60 t
  • Empty weight: 8 t
  • Maximum payload: 250 kg
  • Destination orbit: LEO or polar orbit at a maximum altitude of 600 km
  • Thrust 1st stage: 883 MN (90 t)
  • Thrust 2nd stage: 294 MN (30 t)
  • Thrust 3rd stage: 39 MN (4 t)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales. (PDF; 104 kB) p. 7 , archived from the original on December 26, 2010 ; accessed on January 1, 2011 (Spanish, Original: 383.630.800 Argentine Pesos): "Gastos por Finalidades y Funciones (Entidad) ... 383.630.800"
  2. ↑ Aquarius / SAC D (ESSP 6). Retrieved May 17, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Gunter cancer: SAOCOM 1A, 1B. In: Gunter's Space Page. July 12, 2017, accessed May 16, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Global Security
  5. ↑ a b Probaron en secreto un cohete argentino , La Nación , August 5, 2007
  6. ↑ Argentina ingreso al club de los siete países que desarrollan satélites. Diario Norte, October 6, 2013, accessed October 11, 2013 (Spanish).
  7. ↑ Stefan Barensky: Echec you démonstrateur argentin VEx-1A. Air & Cosmos, March 7, 2014, accessed July 17, 2014 (French).
  8. ↑ Radio Intereconomía: Argentina realiza segundo ensayo para futuro lanzador de satélites. August 16, 2014, archived from the original on August 19, 2014 ; Retrieved August 16, 2014 (Spanish).
  9. ↑ Fernando Hisas: El futuro 2: Vehículo Lanzador TII. (PDF of 2 MB) In: Plan Espacial Nacional. CONAE, August 23, 2011, p. 28 , accessed July 7, 2012 (Spanish).

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