The China-Argentina Radio Telescope (CART), located in the Argentine province of San Juan, will be officially inaugurated at the end of October or early November, the daily Dangdai reported Oct. 18. It was announced Oct. 17 during the sixth annual China Culture Week at the Universidad del Congreso in Mendoza province, by Maria Veronica Benavente, Secretary of Science, Technology and Innovation of San Juan.
Begun in 2015, CART’s construction was slowed down by the pandemic, but is now in its final stages. It is a wonderful example of cooperation between the Argentine state, through its National Science and Technology Research Commission, several leading universities, and the National Astronomy Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
During the Oct. 17 seminar at which CART’s inauguration was announced, Yao Janting, deputy director of international cooperation of China’s National Space Administration, spoke via video of the excellent bilateral cooperation between Argentina’s National Space Activities Commission, and the space monitoring and tracking station that China built in the Patagonian province of Neuquén, which has contributed to China’s missions to the Moon and Mars.
