On the same days that the national campaign “Malvinas unites us” was launched, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the war, the administration of Tierra del Fuego Governor Gustavo Melella not only authorized the establishment of LeoLabs Limited , but also began a period of collaboration so that the company with British and Irish capital could install a radar with military capacity in Tolhuin.
The first public document is dated Friday, March 4, 2022 , when the Government made official through the Official Gazette of Tierra del Fuego No. 5065 , the acceptance of the establishment of " LEOLABS LIMITED" by the General Inspection of Justice . "A private limited company registered in the United Kingdom duly incorporated and operating under the laws of England and Wales with registered office Fieldfisher, Riverbank House, 2 Swan Lane, London, England."
In the following paragraph, they also legalized the lawyer Pablo Renan Bilbao, son-in-law of the then National Deputy Mabel Caparros and the only member of the FORJA block in the Lower House of Congress ; as Legal Representative of the Company in Argentina .
A month later, on April 5 , the Provincial Energy Directorate DPE, headed by Engineer Juan Manccini, opened the file for the Provincial Energy Directorate to carry out a kilometer-long extension of the electrical network to the property. And on June 2 , the Environment Secretariat decided to approve "the Project Notice Guide corresponding to the construction and operation of a Nidas 1D radar, to be installed in the Ea. El Relincho of the Municipality of Tolhuin."
The mayor of Tolhuin, Daniel Harrigton ; has stated - but not yet proven -; that in August 2022 he "paralyzed a work" that was being carried out in Ea. El Relincho and that he sent information and/or consulted in writing both the national and provincial governments, about the construction of alleged antennas.
On Tuesday, November 15 , 8 months and 11 days after having completed all the official procedures in Tierra del Fuego in record time, the Undersecretariat of Telecommunications and Connectivity of the Office of the Chief of Ministers of the Nation authorized “on a provisional basis the company LEOLABS ARGENTINA SRL, to install and put into operation an S-Band ground station, in order to track and monitor objects in a LEO (Low Earth Orbit) environment.”
Nobody hides the good news
It is striking that throughout this stage of processing and intervention not only by agencies but also by senior officials of the province, the Melella administration had not made any public statement. Nor when the company obtained the precarious authorization and was preparing to carry out the installation of the antennas.
No such demonstration is known, even though on March 13, 2023, from the Argentine embassy in Washington, LeoLabs CEO Dan Ceperley made an announcement celebrated by Ambassador Jorge Arguello , announcing that the company had decided on Argentina to set up its “new space radar” , and that the chosen location was “in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, just under 5,000 km from Antarctica”.
