INVAP S.E. is an Argentine company that provides design, integration, construction and delivery of equipment, plants and devices. The company operates in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and delivers projects for nuclear, aerospace, chemical, medical, petroleum and governmental sectors.
The company is an unlisted private company, the sole owner being the Province of Río Negro. Its headquarters is in San Carlos de Bariloche. As of 2023, INVAP employs some 1,700 employees, 80% of which are highly trained professionals and specialists in their field of expertise.[1]
In 2018 the company was avowed as the most important business from Argentina, winning the Diamond Konex Award.
INVAP was created on September 1, 1976,[2] as a spin-off of the Argentine Atomic Energy Commission, research laboratories division. The name INVAP is a portmanteau of the words investigación aplicada ("applied research" in Spanish).
INVAP was the first company in Latin America certified by NASA (the US (National) Aeronautics and Space Administration) to supply space technologies.[1] It constructs satellites, payloads, and ground stations, including the SAC ("Satelites de Aplicación Científica") satellite family, developed for the Argentine space agency CONAE. INVAP was the first company in Latin America to provide design, development, mission control and operational support.[3]
The SAC-D was put into orbit on June 9, 2011, carrying several scientific payloads, including NASA's $100 million Aquarius project, which will measure the oceans' salinity.[4]ARSAT-1 - the first communications satellite entirely built in Argentina - was launched in 2014, while a second satellite in the series, ARSAT-2 was launched in September 2015.[5][6]
In 2009, INVAP and the Spanish group Isolux were pre-selected in an international tender, known as the PALLAS project. This entailed the procurement of an 80 MW nuclear reactor for the Dutch city of Petten[9] (see Petten nuclear reactor), but in February 2010, the Dutch radiopharmaceutical producer Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group (NRG) extended the preparatory phase up to end of the year for financing.[10]
In 2010, INVAP and CITEDEF completed the development and readied for testing a method that used a laser to remove the radioactive components from heavy water which is used to cool nuclear reactors.[11]
On the 24th of January, 2018, INVAP won the international tender for a nuclear research reactor and radioisotope production facility for medical uses in The Netherlands.[12]
Algeria
Argentina
Australia
Egypt
Peru
Netherlands
