Nahuel 1A was a Spacebus 2000NG satellite manufactured Dornier Satellitensysteme as prime contractor with Aérospatiale of Cannes-Mandelieu supplying the bus.

[8][2] In the early 1990s, the Argentine government gave the monopoly for Ku band satellite broadcasting to Nahuelsat S.A. a consortium of European companies.

In the meantime, they ordered a satellite, plus a backup, and a ground station from Dornier Satellitensysteme, which acted as program prime.

The primary satellite was successfully launched on 22:04:00, January 30, 1997 (UTC) (1997-01-30T22:04:00Z) from the Guiana Space Centre ELA-2 aboard the Ariane 44L V96.

On April 5, 2001 the 7B showed the first failure (excessive chamber temperature due to oxidizer rich combustion).

So the Argentine Government created ARSAT which accepted to assume all Nahuelsat obligations in exchange for all assets of the company.

[2] On December 7, 2007 2B started misbehaving, and plans for transferring the satellite to a graveyard orbit were drawn.

[2] During early 2010, ARSAT decided to transfer the satellite to the 81° West slot, to protect the orbital rights.

As was requested by management, a previously drawn plan using only 4B+5B to send the satellite to a graveyard orbit was put in action.

Using mostly the trapped helium and propellant residuals, it successfully put the bird on a 250 km (130 nmi) orbit above GSO and Nahuel 1A was switched off.

It helped train an Argentine ground controller force, that would be fundamental in the operation of the ARSAT-1 and following models.