On 3 June, the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (FCFM) of the University of Chile hosted the talk “European Space Agency (ESA): Programmes, Operations, and Deep Space Antennas”. The event aimed to raise awareness about the agency’s work and explore opportunities for collaboration with Chilean institutions.

The session began with a presentation by Anabelle Fonseca, from ESA’s International Relations Department, who provided an overview of the organisation in a talk titled “Getting to Know the European Space Agency”. Next, Simon Plum, Head of the Mission Operations Department, delivered the presentation “ESA Operations and Science Missions: Exploring the Deep Space Antennas”. Finally, Javier de Vicente, Systems Engineer at the Operations Directorate, concluded the series with a talk on “The Role of Deep Space Antennas and the Need for a Fifth Antenna”.

The event concluded with an engaging Q&A session, during which students, academics, and external attendees expressed strong interest in the topics presented.

Following the talks, ESA representatives held a working meeting with authorities and academics from the FCFM, the Center for Mathematical Modeling (CMM), and the Copernicus Regional Centre for Latin America and the Caribbean (Copernicus LAC Chile), with the aim of exploring potential synergies and concrete avenues for collaboration.

The meeting was attended by Francisco Martínez, Dean of the FCFM; Marcos Díaz, academic lead of the Space and Planetary Exploration Laboratory (SPEL); Héctor Ramírez, Director of the CMM; Pía Hevia and Paola Sabatti, representatives of the European Union Delegation in Chile; Jean-François Mayence, Legal Consultant at ESA; and Macarena Pérez and Florencio Utreras, Executive Coordinator and Director of Copernicus LAC Chile, respectively.