In an extensive note published this Saturday by Infobae , on the operation and services of the space monitoring company LeoLabs created eight years ago in Silicon Valley, USA; the new CEO of the company Tony Frazier referred specifically to the radar of its British and Irish subsidiaries installed in the town of Tolhuin, Tierra del Fuego.
And although he makes no mention of the controversy surrounding the controversial radar, nor of the warnings regarding the danger to national security issued by the Argentine Ministry of Defense in August 2023, nor of the withdrawal of the precarious authorizations granted by the Chief of Staff of the Nation in September 2023, nor of the announcements by the Tierra del Fuego government to judicialize its presence so as not to be forced to resolve politically; Frazier expressed being " very committed to our presence in Argentina."
Frazier 's presence at LeoLabs is no small feat. He joined the company in February to play "a key role in expanding the company's involvement in military space operations and advanced space security initiatives," according to information published on February 27 of this year by Washingtonexec.com .
Thus, and although the references to space surveillance operations from Tierra del Fuego are mentioned in potential terms, Infobae indicates that “according to the company itself, the Tierra del Fuego station will allow them to have a greater knowledge of the southern hemisphere, where until now there was very little infrastructure of this type, which had repercussions on the security conditions of space traffic in this half of the globe.”
“We are very committed to our presence in Argentina,” explained the company’s CEO, Tony Frazier . He concluded: “We want to make sure that the work we do is not just providing data and information, but also building capacity in the country, where there are more than 200 companies that are part of its space ecosystem.”
In the same article, LeoLabs also refers to the military services it provides “to the Japanese Ministry of Defense, more precisely to its Air Force.” This information is complemented by what was published on its own website on June 13, stating that it “will develop a next-generation space tracking radar with funding from the U.S. Air Force” to “track objects in very low Earth orbit (VLEO).”
Perfecting journalistic amnesia, Infobae speaks of the radar in the future tense: “LeoLabs’ enormous radar network will also include a station in Argentina,” it says. And in that same time frame, it announces the construction of what has already existed since the end of 2022: “It will be located in the town of Tolhuin, just over 100 kilometers from Ushuaia, in the province of Tierra del Fuego. This will be added to the facilities that the company has in Texas, Alaska, Costa Rica, the Azores Islands, Australia and New Zealand”; Infobae states, in a clear press operation that has all the additives of having been written by the US embassy itself, in Argentina.
Frazier's experience applied to military intelligence
Additional details about Frazier reiterate the military-space goals LeoLabs owns and operates. He has “extensive experience combining commercial space innovations with national defense.” He previously held “a senior position at Maxar Technologies, where he led a successful billion-dollar division focused on ground intelligence for various government and international clients.”
“After my experience at Maxar, I was looking for a company that would bring commercial innovation to a critical national security mission,” he said in June in the note published by washingtonexec.com . And adds: “LeoLabs is delivering incredible capabilities in the emerging space situational awareness and space domain awareness markets. LeoLabs was the first company to detect a secondary object launched by a Russian satellite in November and persistently tracked China’s spaceplane for over 200 days in 2022-2023, detecting multiple maneuvers, deployments, and docking activities.”
The only ones who “don't see it” are the governor of Tierra del Fuego, Gustavo Melella and his supernumerary cabinet. A slack-oiled gear , which has become expert in evasions and empty declamations, to favor foreign interests that are maintained at any price and cost; against Argentine sovereign rights and the security of the Nation.
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