CELPA also known as CELPA Atlántico (Centro de Experimentación y Lanzamiento de Proyectiles Autopropulsados) was a rocket launch site in Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, north of Mar del Plata

Mar del Plata

Mar del Plata is an Argentine city located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, south of Buenos Aires. Mar del Plata is the second largest city of Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" had apparently the sense of "sea of the Río de la Plata region" or "adjoining sea to the Río de la Plata"...

. The launch site was in service from 1968 to 1976 and was mainly used for launching rockets of the types Orion II, Arcas, Rocketsonde

Rocketsonde

A rocketsonde, a kind of sounding rocket, is a system for atmospheric observations that consists of a rocket that launches instruments that can make weather observations up to an altitude of 75,000 m. Common meteorological rockets are the Loki and Super Loki.A typical rocket is 3.7 m tall and is...

 and Dragon I

Dragon (rocket)

The Dragon is a two-stage French solid propellant sounding rocket used for high altitude research. Its first stage was a Stromboli engine which burned 675 kg of fuel in 16 s and so produced a maximum thrust of 88 kN. A Belier engine was used as the upper stage...

. The tests from CELPA Atlántico were sponsored by the United Nations since 1969. There was a total number of 69 tests. The compound was used by agencies like NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

, Meteorological Rocket Network (USA), CNES

CNES

The is the French government space agency . Established under President Charles de Gaulle in 1961, its headquarters are located in central Paris and it is under the supervision of the French Ministries of Defence and Research...

 (France) and CONAE (Argentina). The site is currently used by the Argentine Air Force

Argentine Air Force

The Argentine Air Force is the national aviation branch of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic. , it had 14,606 military and 6,854 civilian staff.-History:...

 and Army

Argentine Army

The Argentine Army is the land armed force branch of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic and the senior military service of the country.- History :...

 to test anti-aircraft weaponry

Anti-aircraft warfare

NATO defines air defence as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action." They include ground and air based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and passive measures. It may be to protect naval, ground and air forces...

.