‘Space Day’ marks 25 years of cooperation with Argentina

Over 500 secondary students from local schools and French and Italian international schools were welcomed to this dedicated education event with a specially recorded message from the ESA astronaut Pablo Fernandez. The students could also enter a competition to win a visit the ESA’s Deep Space Antenna (DS3) in Malargüe, Mendoza, later this year.

Specialists from ESA and the Argentinian space agency CONAE described how space missions are developed and operated, highlighting the fundamental role of the DS3 Deep Space Antenna.

Full-dome video shows detailed ESA programmes that aim to understand Earth and its space environment, as well as new applications of satellite-based technologies and services.

The event was attended by the Argentinian Minister of Education Mercedes Miguel, the Undersecretary of Educational Technology Ignacio Sanguinetti, the Executive and Technical Director of CONAE, Eng. Raúl Kulichevsky, and the French ambassador to Argentina, Romain Nadal, among others.

ESA representatives were: Victor Demaria Pesce, Senior Scientific Advisor in the Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration; Sandra Benítez, education scientist and Head of the ESAC Communication Office; Javier de Vicente, systems engineer of the Directorate of Operations; and Anabelle Fonseca from the International Relations department.

Argentina maintains a close and permanent collaboration with ESA, dating back to October 1997, when the first cooperation agreement was signed on reception and distribution of ERS-1 and ERS-2 Earth observation data.

Deep Space Antenna DS3 was inaugurated at Malargüe in 2012. Since then, it has played a fundamental role in the tracking and control of ESA spacecraft including Venus Express, Mars Express, ExoMars, BepiColombo, SOHO, Herschel, Plank and Gaia. In 2023 it played a prominent role in the launches of the Juice and Euclid missions.

The station is used for communicating not only with ESA’s current Solar System and deep-space exploration missions, but also missions from international partners such as NASA and the Indian space agency ISRO. Argentinian scientists are allocated 10% of DS3 operating time for their research, including an ESA/NASA/CONAE cooperation on a southern hemisphere star catalogue.  

ESA is continuing its support to the Argentinian SAOCOM 1A and 1B missions, with operations teams in Germany helping Argentine colleagues to monitor their satellites. Several joint training courses and workshops have been set up with CONAE, run by Argentinian and European experts, with regular traineeships for Argentinian students financed by ESA.

ESA’s Anabelle Fonseca said, “Those of us who in the ESA delegation are very happy to be able to share this day with young students here at the Buenos Aires Planetarium. It is a new opportunity to strengthen cooperation ties with Argentina in relation to space activities, and in particular with CONAE.”