National Space Weather Activities of Argentina

SERGIO DASSO; ADRIANA GULISANO; ANA G. ELIAS

Boston

Workshop; The United Nations/United States of America Workshop on the International Space Weather Initiative: The Decade after the International Heliophysical Year 2007; 2017

Boston University

Taking a look back, among the first space research institutions in Argentina is the Institute of Astronomy and Space Physics (IAFE) created in 1969 by the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), with the main purpose of doing scientific research in the field of Space Physics and Astronomy. Towards mid 1970s several institutions in Argentina began with upper atmosphere research under the coordination of a National Project called ?Programa Nacional de Radio-Propagación? formed from several institutions such as the Physics and Electrical Engineering Institutes from the National University of Tucuman. In 1991 CONAE, the Argentine Space Agency was created to coordinate the country?s space activities, and to propose and implement a National Space Plan. CONAE also cooperates with foreign space agencies, like European Space Agency (ESA), National Center for Space Studies (CNES), and NASA on space weather and climate related missions. Among its space weather related activities are three of the Scientific Applications Satellite (SAC) series, SAC-B, SAC-C and SAC-D, which have carried space-borne instrumentation to measure solar X-rays and energetic particle distributions reaching low Earth orbit. Currently, in addition to the mentioned institutions that are actively involved in space weather research and data gathering, several researchers and laboratories in Argentina carry on space weather related studies and measurements jointly under RAPEAS project (an Argentina net of CONICET, formed by several institutions, focused on academic activities linked with the upper atmosphere). They are also actively working on the creation of Argentina?s own Space Weather Regional Warning Center, while being part of the International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI) and the Interprogramme Coordination Team on Space Weather (ICTSW) from the WMO. In this presentation, a detailed enumeration of institutions, instruments and senior scientists in Argentina involved in space weather activities is done together with its evolution in a historical perspective.