Douglas Isbell
Headquarters, Washington, DC                 October 18, 1997
(Phone:  202/358-1753)

RELEASE:  97-238

NASA AND ARGENTINA SIGN AGREEMENTS ON FUTURE 
COOPERATION

     NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin and Dr. Conrado 
Franco Varotto, Executive Director of the Argentina National 
Commission on Space Activities (CONAE), signed memoranda of 
understanding (MOU) on the Satelite de Aplicaciones 
Cientificas (SAC)-C and (SAC)-A today in Buenos Aires, 
Argentina.  Mr. Goldin was in Buenos Aires accompanying 
President Bill Clinton.

     SAC-C will conduct correlated observations of the Earth 
of interest to Argentina and the United States, and also will 
contribute directly to the NASA Mission to Planet Earth 
Program.  SAC-C will entail the flight of an Argentine 
Multispectral Medium Resolution Scanner (MMRS) that will be 
used primarily by Argentina to monitor forest inventory in 
the Argentine region of Mesopotamia; predict agricultural 
production in the Pampean region; evaluate and elaborate maps 
of the Patagonian desert; monitor pollution; evaluate changes 
in the Chacoan forests and correlate these changes with 
atmospheric changes in CO2; and examine circulation and 
productivity in marine coastal areas.  SAC-C also will carry 
magnetic field instruments provided by the Danish 
Meteorological Institute, which will include a NASA-provided 
scalar magnetometer to monitor the main geomagnetic field, 
map lithospheric magnetic anomalies and study ionospheric 
current systems.  

     A NASA-provided Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) 
receiver will determine the position of the spacecraft to the 
subdecimeter level, provide timing control, provide estimates 
of atmospheric index of refraction and atmospheric 
temperature and water content, contribute to improved 
estimates of the intermediate wavelength gravity field, map 
ionospheric structure, and provide the first satellite-based 
tests of the ability to observe GPS signals reflected from 
the ocean surface for possible altimetry and scatterometry 
applications.  NASA also will launch the satellite, currently 
scheduled for a Delta rocket, in May 1999.

     Mr. Goldin and Dr. Varotto signed the Spanish text of 
the SAC-C MOU.  The English text of the MOU was signed at 
NASA Headquarters on Oct. 28, 1996.

     SAC-A will be launched as a hitchhiker payload from the 
Space Shuttle cargo bay in 1998 on the STS-88 mission, which 
also is the first Space Station assembly mission.  The small 
Argentine-built satellite will test several new space 
technologies for the Argentine and U.S. space programs.  A 
NASA-provided differential global positioning system (DGPS) 
will provide real-time autonomous attitude measurements for 
the satellite, ultimately simplifying the amount of ground 
processing required to control an orbiting satellite.  
Argentina will provide a Charge Coupled Device (CCD) camera 
to perform digital space photography, silicon solar cells 
that will be performance-tested on SAC-A, and a magnetometer 
to take scalar measurements of the Earth's magnetic field.  
Finally, SAC-A will test an Argentinean experiment to track 
endangered whale population migrations in the southern 
hemisphere.

     The signing of these agreements reflects the continued 
growth and importance of civil space cooperation between NASA 
and CONAE.  Argentina opened the doors to a partnership in 
civil space with the establishment of CONAE in 1991.  NASA 
and CONAE soon signed a framework agreement, and the level of 
cooperation between the two agencies has increased 
significantly since then.  In addition to SAC-C and SAC-A, 
the two programs are now cooperating on ozone investigations 
and protein crystallography investigations aboard the Space 
Shuttle.

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