The Argentine government recently announced that the country will participate in NASA’s Artemis II, the first crewed mission to the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. 

The mission will launch five small satellites from NASA’s international partners, including Atenea, which was developed in Argentina.

President Javier Milei held up Argentina’s spot in the moon mission as proof of the country’s technological prowess and vindication of his “efficient” allotment of resources. The message did not go down well among the scientists themselves: Atenea was developed by the National Commission for Space Activities (CONAE), a government agency suffering from Milei’s massive cuts to science.

Artemis II is a planned 10-day lunar spaceflight mission, led by NASA and scheduled for February 6. In the mission, a rocket will carry four astronauts around the moon and back to Earth. While they will not land on the moon, the flight will take the crew farther from Earth than any previous human mission.

Atenea, the Argentine satellite, is part of a technology demonstration mission developed by the Argentine Space Agency, aimed at the agile and low-cost production of small........

© Buenos Aires Herald