The regional secretary for Housing and Infrastructures reaffirmed today, in Ponta Delgada, the “unmistakable will” of the Executive in continuing to establish an aerospace "cluster", in the archipelago, especially directed for the creation of qualified job and of new incomes for the Region.
In the frame of this objective, José Contente signed a protocol of cooperation with the General Direction of the National Geographical Institute of Spain (IGN) an agreement for the implementation of an Atlantic Network of Geodynamical and Space Stations (RAEGE), meant for the execution of studies in the area of the astronomy, geodesy, geophysics and of the corresponding applications of Civil Service.
As he explained, the network at issue foresees the installation of two fundamental geodetic stations (EGF) in the Azores - one in Flores and other one in São Miguel - and so many others in Spanish territory.
For the operational management of these stations, the Azorean ruler anticipated being predicted the creation of two base centres, one in the Azores and other in Spain, indicating that the Regional Government and that Spanish institute agreed to begin the feasibility study that it allows to determine the necessary proceedings and resources to the functioning and exploration of the Atlantic Network of Geodynamical and Space Stations.
The regional secretary for Housing and Infrastructures underlined, also, that the VLBI stations of Flores and of São Miguel will be operated by technicians of high vocational qualification like astronomers, electrotechnical engineers, technical engineers and operators who will be able to be recruited in the Azores.
For the governor, it is one more challenge for the Azoreans and an opportunity that the Azores claim to win with ambition and sense of future.
Besides admitting the possibility of both stations entering in functioning in 2009, allowing to the Azores to make part of a wider space network in the frame of the healthy globalization that the Autonomous Region claims to assume, José Contente reaffirmed the commitment of the Government in reinforcing the centrality of the archipelago, with the affirmation of the islands in the Atlantic, this time with a new project of great reach.
In the dominion of these trajectories of regional development, there was still referred some fulfilled and current actions and measures, in the islands, namely the station project of the European Space Agency (ESA), in Santa Maria, the Digital Cartography, the Network of Constant Stations of the Autonomous Region of the Azores (REPRAA), and the NEREUS project concerning the European Regions that use space technology.
Only in the ESA, Digital Cartography and Network of Constant Stations of the ARA projects, the Azorean executive already invested more than four million euros, he indicated.