Lost in space and without satellite plan | The go …

In his latest report sent to the Chamber of Deputies, the Chief of Staff, Marcos Peña, confirmed that the government had rented it at the end of last year to the European company SES the Astra-1H satellite, which has already exceeded its useful life, but position it in the Ka-band at orbital position 81ºW for three months and thus prevent the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) from removing the rights of use on this space. The operation, revealed by PageI12 on February 11, it cost the national state 7 million euros, which could have been avoided if Mauricio Macri's government had not suspended the construction of the Arsat-3, which should have been operational in that state. band starting this year. Peña also acknowledged that the lease had been carried out directly, disregarding other offers, which called into question the transparency of the operation.

In the management report No. 120, available on the website of the Chamber of Deputies, the chief of staff indicates that Arsat has three satellite networks in use: 1) Nahuel-C in the 72 ° position West in the Ku and Ku extended bands; 2) PP-SAT-1 at 81 ° West in the extended C, Ku and Ku bands and 3) Arsat-D at 81 ° West in the Ka band. In the first network, Arsat-1 is operated, in the second, Arsat-2 and in the third, whose commissioning time is set to 12 September 2019, should work with Arsat-3, but as the government J & # I even started to build it, this position was in danger. As a result, the Astra-1H satellite has been leased and the network commissioned from September 29, 2018 to January 10, 2019 ", thus enabling the rights of the orbital position to be maintained before the International Telecommunication Union", states the report.

The chief of staff explains that before renting the satellite Astra-1H, Arsat's satellite services management had consulted with the companies SES, Hughes Networks Systems, Hispasat / Hispamar, Intelsat and Viasat, but that only SES had replied service that Arsat was asking. "The Government Secretariat for Modernization has indicated that the satellite service management has indicated that SES offers the only protection solution through the migration of the Astra-H1 satellite, at 81 degrees west, for a period of four years. twenty ten days, "explained the manager. Chief of Staff

In an article published last week on the specialized portal latamsatelital.com, the former vice president of Arsat, Guillermo Rus, said that direct purchase was a controversial decision because of the lack of money. other companies able to provide the same service in the region were not involved. consulted. For example, Eutelsat, Yahsat and Telesat are three other operators with Ka band capacity in the Americas and none of them is mentioned in the official report. The satellite operator DirecTV was also not contacted, which had received in 2016 the provisional authorization to conduct a Ka-band satellite broadband pilot test on the SpaceWay-2 satellite.

The Chief of Staff's report also indicates that the Modernization Secretariat manages four other networks covering the entire Americas: 1) the ARSAT-F satellite network, 2) the ARSAT-G satellite network, 3) ARSAT satellite network -H and 4) ARSAT-M satellite network. These networks are not in service such as Nahuel-C, PP-SAT-1 and ARSAT-D, but as the Geostationary Satellite Plan of Argentina 2015-2035, approved by Law 27,208, does not include the following: is not respected, it will eventually lose priority of resources

The abandonment of the development plan of the national satellite industry was also manifested on June 19 when the secretariat of the modernization issued resolution 1103/19 authorizing the state company Arsat to provide services Ka-band on the Telstar satellite. -19 Vantage of the Canadian operator Telesat. The capacity of the embedded satellite is 1500 MHz in Ka-band and only Arsat, as a national satellite operator, can market services on this satellite. The paradox, as noted specialist Guillermo Rus, is that instead of operating Ka-band services in an orbital position attributed to Argentina with a satellite manufactured in the province of Rio Negro by Invap, as it was the Arsat-3 system. , the government eventually purchased satellite capacity from a Canadian operator of a US-made satellite located in an orbital position badigned to Brazil.