On March 10, the Ministry of Defense and INVAP signed an agreement to develop unmanned air vehicles (VANT, in Spanish) for the national government, with the aim of surveilling and controlling large air, land and sea spaces of the country, in the context of the project “Argentine Air Robotic System” (SARA, in Spanish), dated back to November 2010 by means of the Ministry of Defense’s Resolution No 1484.
The agreement on the development and manufacture of an Operational Prototype System Class II and III involves an investment of over two billion Argentine pesos within the next six years. A prototype aimed at evaluating useful technological developments for the SARA project was successfully tested in August 2014, on the outskirts of Córdoba city.
In that regard, the Secretary of Science, Technology and Production for the Defense, Lic. Santiago Rodríguez, remarked that “once the investigation and development stage of the SARA project is finished, every advance in engineering and all the technological knowledge required for the production of the Operational Prototype System Class II and III will be shared with Fábrica Argentina de Aviones (FAdeA, in Spanish), whereas the knowledge required for the high-speed aircraft target (BAAV, in Spanish) will be shared with Military Industries. Both state-owned companies will be responsible for their manufacture with the cooperation of a great number of national small and medium technological enterprises (PYMES, in Spanish) as providers.”
In his turn, the Vice-President of INVAP’s Board of Directors, Lic. Hugo Albani, stated that “this is a highly valuable initiative since its a six-year project with considerable potentiality, all in all, it means a lot of work for national providers. And it will involve the Argentine Navy, Military Industries, the Scientific and Technological Research Institute for the Defense (Citedef, in Spanish) and the Aeronautical University lnstitute of Córdoba, which are fundamental to the development of the SARA project.”
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Official Bulletin Administrative Decision1/2015
Fabricaciones Militares
