Juan Manzur, ARSAT's chief of staff, and its president Matías Tombolini, met earlier this month to review the necessary steps to progress with the construction of a new satellite.
Tentatively known as ARSAT - SG2, this new infrastructure will provide connectivity throughout the Argentine territory, including the Malvinas Islands and Antarctica. It will also support the export of digital services to South American countries, as described by president Alberto Fernández during the country's National Congress.
"Our president said it on Tuesday in Parliament and 48 hours later we are analysing, together with the new head of ARSAT, how we implement the necessary actions to advance the production of the fourth Argentine satellite, because there is no time left for our objective: to promote digital sovereignty and give continuity to a space and services plan for our neighbouring countries,” said Manzur.
"The president's announcement in the Legislative Assembly is very important fundamentally because it has to do with expanding the fleet of national satellites ," explained Tombolini, adding that, "Argentina is one of the few countries in the world that designs, produces and operates its own telecommunications satellites.”
Once operational, ARSAT-SG2 will occupy the 72° orbit, making it a GEO satellite and will be developed as part of the country's Connect Plan , which aims to bolster Geostationary activities as well as the development of the satellite industry in Argentina.
ARSAT-SG2 is to be built in tandem with ARSAT-SG1, following on from its predecessors ARSAT-1 and ARSAT-2.
“Argentina is in the production process of the ARSAT-SG1, which comes to replace the ARSAT-3, a project that the previous administration disarmed. The new ARSAT-SG2 makes it possible to take advantage of the production process of the first one and provides data transmission capacity in what has to do with the internet,” said Tombolini.
“Fundamentally we are thinking of satellites that are closely linked to increasing the capacity to access data that today are essential to increase capacity or improve production in the different regions of Argentina.”
ARSAT-2 has an estimated cost of around US$250 million with $30 million required for the first year of development. Deputy Chief of Staff, Jorge Neme, who was also in attendance, confirmed that the Secretariat for Strategic Affairs is the process of securing credit for the project have been granted credit by the Development Bank of Latin America - CAF for the construction and development of ARSAT-SG1 for $243 million dollars.
