Chinese Government provides $50 million for construction of space station in Neuquén Province

On July 20, 2012, the Government of Argentina's Space Agency (Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales or CONAE) signed a cooperation agreement with China Satellite Launch and Tracking Control General (CLTC) to carry out a deep space exploration program. However, Argentina’s Congress did not approve the proposal until March 3, 2015 (via la Ley N° 27.123).

Then, on February 15, 2016, the Chinese Government and Government of Argentina signed an agreement that allows the Chinese Government to build a ground station in western Argentina for scientific research purposes. The project represented a $50 million commitment, but the nature of the flow type is unknown.

The stated purpose of building the ground station (known as the Espacio Lejano Station) within Loncopué Department and Neuquén Province was to promote scientific research.

According to Jorge Sapag, the former governor of Neuquén Province, the project would also promote scientific tourism through the construction of an on-site educational center and create 400 jobs and boost the development of the local economy, technology and education. China Harbor Engineering Corporation (CHEC) was the contractor responsible for construction of the ground station.

It hired ESUCO S.A. as a subcontractor. Construction reportedly began during the summer of 2013. Aerial photography from December 2013 confirmed that construction of the ground station was underway.

Then, at end of April 2016, Chinese and Argentine officials announced that the station will be fully operational in March 2017. By early 2017, satellite imagery suggests that most of the buildings at the ground station were structurally complete.

At least 300 Argentine construction workers assisted on the site, according to Argentina's space agency (CONAE), before the project was handed over to Chinese management. Today, there are 30 Chinese staff members who work and live at the station.

When China built a military-run space station in Argentina’s Patagonian region it promised to include a visitors’ center to explain the purpose of its powerful 16-story antenna. The center is now built -- behind the 8-foot barbed wire fence that surrounds the entire space station compound. Visits are by appointment only.

Shrouded in secrecy, the compound has stirred unease among local residents, fueled conspiracy theories and sparked concerns within the U.S.

Government about its true purpose, according to interviews with dozens of residents, current and former Argentine government officials, U.S. officials, satellite and astronomy specialists and legal experts.

The station’s stated aim is peaceful space observation and exploration and, according to Chinese media, it played a key role in China’s landing of a spacecraft on the dark side of the moon in January.

But the remote 200-hectare compound operates with little oversight by the Argentine authorities, according to hundreds of pages of Argentine government documents obtained by Reuters and reviewed by international law experts.

President Mauricio Macri’s former foreign minister, Susana Malcorra, said in an interview with Reuters that Argentina has no physical oversight of the station’s operations. In 2016, she revised the China space station deal to include a stipulation it be for civilian use only.

The agreement obliges China to inform Argentina of its activities at the station but provides no enforcement mechanism for authorities to ensure it is not being used for military purposes.

When Argentina’s Congress debated the space station in 2015, during the presidency of Cristina Fernandez, opposition lawmakers questioned why there was no stipulation that it only be for civilian use. Nonetheless, Congress approved the deal.

Then, when Macri took office in 2015, he was worried the space station agreement did not explicitly say it should be for civilian use only. Malcorra flew to Beijing in 2016 to rework it.

However, Malcorra said she was constrained in her ability to revise it because it had already been signed by the previous (Fernandez) administration.