Milei says moon mission satellite shows efficient science spending. Researchers disagree

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. The mission 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 satellites for Earth observation and space exploration. The Argentine microsatellite will be put aboard the rocket at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Atenea is a so-called CubeSat measuring around 30 cm x 20 cm x 20 cm. Its functions include measuring radiation doses in low and deep orbits. “It will be held in the Artemis rocket, in a small cabin,” said Emiliano Baum, who is head of IT for CONAE’s Earth stations. “When it reaches 70,000 kilometers from Earth, it will be pushed into space. For 14 hours, it will float in orbit and Argentina will obtain data from that CubeSat for 12 hours.”  Baum’s area will receive Atenea’s data while it’s flying. “There are a lot of challenges involved in receiving it. The satellite will send a signal every 15 seconds and then cut out. So it will be difficult even to locate it. Of those 12 hours, we don’t know how long we will be able to receive information,” he said. Raúl Kulichevsky, Executive and Technical Director of CONAE, said in a statement that “CONAE and NASA have a long and fruitful history of collaboration, spanning more than 30 years.” He added that being selected for the Artemis II demonstrates that Argentina’s “technical and operational capabilities are at the highest international level.” ‘Unnecessary’ social sciences spending However, to scientists involved in the mission, Milei’s celebration of the project left a bitter taste. The president said in a statement that “technological development and research into strategic issues are the priorities for this administration’s investment in science, while resources are made more efficient by eliminating unnecessary spending in social or political areas.” Yet, according to Gonzalo Sanz Cerbino, a union representative for Conicet research council, that is not true. “One thing that characterizes the situation of the Argentine scientific and technological system since Javier Milei took office is the almost total and complete funding of all areas of scientific knowledge,” he told the Herald.  “Milei is not taking resources from certain areas to finance others that the government considers strategic,” he said, adding that hard sciences, “which need greater investment for things to function and for equipment to be maintained, end up being the most affected” by the administration’s cuts. That includes the space program that created the satellite.  “We have lost more than 30% of the budget so far, and the budget presented for 2026 was 57% lower than the budget we obtained in 2025,” said Baum, who is also the CONAE’s union representative. The cuts Since Milei took office, the budget for the country’s scientific institutions fell dramatically. Baum emphasized that the Atenea project is relatively cheap, and that it was approved before Milei took office. Moreover, he said that CONEA’s other satellite projects — Tronador and SAOCOM 2 — were dismantled by the Milei administration. For Baum, the Artemis mission represents a “new space race” between the United States and China. “Both countries are competing to establish a base on the moon that will serve as a hub for future deep space missions,” he said. To him, the fact that the government announced the mission while deepening cuts in science goes to show that “what matters to the government is the photo with the US flag, because of the geopolitical alignment that the Milei administration wants to exhibit.” Cover image: Artemis II at Kennedy Space Center January 2026. Photo: NASA