Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial
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| Acronym | INTA |
|---|---|
| Owner |
 Spain
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| Established | 1942 |
| Headquarters | Torrejón de Ardoz, Community of Madrid, Spain |
| Administrator | Fernando Gonzalez Garcia |
| Budget | €200 million |
| Official language(s) | Spanish |
| Website | www.inta.es |
The Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA, English: National Institute of Aerospace Technology) is Spain's space agency. It was founded in 1942, as the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeronáutica (National Institute of Aeronautics), and has its headquarters in Torrejón de Ardoz, near Madrid.
Its budget of more than €150 million comes from the Spanish Ministry of Defence and from its own projects with the industry. As of 2008 INTA has a total of 1200 employees, 80% of them dedicated to R&D activities.
Its two main areas of activity are research and development (for example, in propulsion, materials, remote sensing) and certification and testing (for example, in aircraft, software, metrology).
Nowadays, INTA controls both the Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex and the El Arenosillo rocket launch site in southern Spain.
INTA designed atmospheric sounding rockets such as:
These operate from the El Arenosillo rocket launch site.
Main objectives of the Nano-satellites and Mini-satellites programmes;
INTA launched its first satellite, the Intasat, on November 15, 1974, aboard a NASA Delta rocket.
LBSAT was launched on Ariane 4 on July 7, 1995.
Next satellite in orbit was Minisat 01, with its 190 kg it was launched on board of a Pegasus rocket over the Canary Islands in April 1997.
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