The first ESA and CONAE PUMAS (Promotion of the Use and Applications of Mission and Science) training, jointly organised by ESA and CONAE in cooperation with the Gulich Institute, the National University of Córdoba (UNC) and the Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS), was held from 14-18 October 2024, at the Teófilo Tabanera Space Centre, in Córdoba, Argentina.

This was the first training organised in the frame of the PUMAS initiative, jointly managed by ESA and CONAE (Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales).

The main objectives of this initiative include:

• promoting the joint exploitation of data from European Earth Observation (EO) missions and CONAE’s SAOCOM L-band SAR mission for scientific research
• the development of innovative and prototype applications using EO data
• stimulating scientific exchange and providing training to young scientists in Europe and Argentina.

50 students, not only from Argentina but also from other Latin American countries, participated in this first edition of the course. Such broad participation from many different countries was possible also thanks to the generous financial support provided to the students by GRSS. The training was led by experts from Europe and Latin America and focused mainly on the use of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), with special emphasis on the data from Sentinel-1 and SAOCOM missions, as well as future ESA SAR missions—such as Biomass and ROSE-L—and addressed techniques such as polarimetry, interferometry and interferometric polarimetry and SAR tomography. 

The training included combined sessions of theory — providing comprehensive knowledge on advanced radar techniques for Earth monitoring — as well as hands-on practical exercises. 

In addition to these technical aspects, the PUMAS training reinforced the cooperation between Latin America and Europe by strengthening links between institutions and encouraging international collaboration among scientists.

The 2024 edition resulted from the joint commitment of ESA, CONAE, and their partners in promoting space technologies to preserve natural resources and find related solutions supporting effective environmental monitoring. 

Santiago Seppi, researcher and lecturer at the Gulich Institute of CONAE, emphasised the importance of this edition due to the presence of international experts like Armando Marino and Carlos López-Martínez, who taught their classes in Spanish, stating, "It is very difficult to find advanced training of this level in Spanish. Not only did they share their knowledge, but they were also open to questions, which created a very valuable space for exchange. This type of event not only contributes to the training of new generations of professionals, but also strengthens ties between institutions and promotes international collaboration, which is essential for advancing the development of satellite data-based applications."