Asi, Esa, Pnrr and more. What is Colao doing on space?
The moves of Minister Colao on space analyzed by Francis Walsingham
With the cancellation of the indefatigable Christian Democrat Bruno Tabacci's delegation to Space, which he modestly justified as his own choice not to disturb the activities of the government, everyone had hoped that the chaos generated in full collaboration with the president of the ASI could be resolved by finally going to a serious and convincing management of the sector.
The handover to Minister Vittorio Colao, whose curriculum speaks for itself, assisted by another big hit, his cabinet chief Stefano Firpo, whose excellent work at Mise is remembered, gave us hope.
But reality, as is often the case, is turning out to be not as rosy as one would like it to be.
At the beginning of their work, the duo Colao-irpo, together with the military adviser of the Prime Minister and high representatives of the Mise and the Mur, met with the leaders of the ASI to take stock of a series of urgent problems such as the Pnrr, the PTA and the status of some heavily delayed programs.
As far as we know, the result was not very positive, the embarrassing situation that had already occurred in a meeting last September two days before the only Comint of the Tabacci era was reproduced, in the presence of only the heads of the cabinet of the Ministries most important present in the committee.
We arrived at the absurdity that minister and head of cabinet appeared much more informed and prepared on the various issues under discussion than the president of ASI and his closest collaborators who assisted him, notoriously of similar managerial caliber of their boss.
It seems that polite disputes have emerged about the poor planning of the proposed interventions, not always correctly justified in economic terms, sometimes not very attentive to the real market prices and scarce attention to involve all potentially interested companies.
Other perplexities emerged regarding the use of the five experts identified by Tabacci, of whom it is not clear on which criteria were chosen given what is reported in the press: both in terms of scientific competence (low H index compared to professionally relevant values ) and presence of serious conflicts of interest for three of them; evidence that certainly does not help to face any attempt to optimize government action in a transparent manner. Moreover, to date they seem to have disappeared from the radar sucked by the oblivion that has also obscured their mentor.
This is the recent past, do the latest problems end here or is there more? Unfortunately not, because the missteps and problems continue to exist.
A very recent false step, not very justified, concerning the direction of the ESA directorate for Earth Observations of Frascati, Esrin: already mentioned in Startmag. An Italian official was appointed historically professionally linked to the Austrian general manager and who has always and only carried out communication activities, but completely lacking the technical skills that the post would have required. A person, therefore, who in a job confrontation could hardly defend Italian interests if they were to conflict with those, equally legitimate, of her employer who chose her in the role.
A few days ago there are two news items that are once again shaking the national space world.
The first is the information, "highly confidential" but known by all in the sector, that the current director of Estec, engineer Franco Ongaro, resigned in advance of the expiry of his second mandate because, it seems that in February he will become the new Cto in Leonardo previously occupied by the current minister Roberto Cingolani .
Obviously the news has sparked the interest of many aspiring candidates, including some who have been chasing this dream for years such as the current president of ASI (he has only a modest hierarchical position of A5), and who have been activated in the spasmodic search for political sponsorship. between the governing parties.
For now, no more precise news has been leaked, there is only the hope that at least this time the choice of the "government candidate" will be evaluated through a serious selection among candidates of recognized international value to compete on an equal footing with major competitors of other members. of the Esa that overlook the horizon; This is so that if the Italian candidate is chosen he can safeguard national interests by avoiding the bad figures that our country has made both in the case of the two candidates for the general management of ESA and in the one not very happy for the direction of Esrin.
The second piece of news, which needs a calm evaluation, is causing great agitation in Asi where some executives shout at the injured majesty of the institution and the professionalism that exists within it: apparently Minister Colao, or whoever for him, has signed an agreement with the general manager of ESA who expects this agency to manage the industrial choices and contracts under the responsibility of ASI, largely from the NRP but also apparently from other sources for a total of around 1,800 billion euros; 60% of the funds relate to Earth Observations while the Vega and Space Rider programs (the latter with Italian leadership) are divided equally by the remaining 40%. Everything will be developed by committing Asi to supply about thirty technicians to assist those ESA in their work.
The agreement itself presents lights and shadows that must be carefully compared in order to establish whether the final result is positive or not.
It is obvious that news of this type, whether we like it or not, sends out a clear political message that certifies something that has been well known for some time: the lack of professional credibility of ASI and its management in the eyes of the current government.
It cannot be said that this is an unexpected bolt from the blue because the problem of how for two years the Agency has been managed in a controversial way and fails – according to many insiders – to the institutional task of providing fair support to all companies national: for these reasons there are more and more complaints addressed to the buildings that matter. The curriculum of President Saccoccia, as can be seen from the Asi website , mentions a Master in business administration from the not very famous Webster University of Leiden which evidently does not appear to have been adequately internalized and made operational.
It should be remembered that the money from the NRP is a loan that must be spent in precise times and in a transparent manner; with the entrustment to ESA, the constraints imposed by Europe will be respected because this is the historical custom of the administration of this institution which has always been used to working early and well given the strategic nature of contracts concerning space activities.
The same cannot be said of Asi's recent history; apply to all the cases of the Platinum Program, delayed by almost three years or the repeated requests to finance a constellation of 30 mini satellites, with functions not better defined on Earth Observations, and for which there is no request for services to be provided and even more for users, institutional or private. Apparently for this proposal, it is reported that a loan of the order of half of the total Pnrr funds to be assigned to a single company seems to have been requested.
ESA guarantees the contract by asking for a fee not exceeding 7% of the total amount; a quarter of the expected cost of the Tabacci bag carrier contract, and this says a lot about many things. In recent days in the press there has been a succession of figures whose origin and reliability of the source was not clear.
On Friday 19th Minister Colao will present this initiative at the ESA meeting to be held in Porto which greatly displaces our European competitors and in any case shows a serious Italian vitality that has long since disappeared from the international context of the sector.
These results displace the long list of those who are tearing off their clothes using bogus cost data, they have read everything from 20% down to 14%, and pretend to ignore the truth of the ASI's inadequacy to ensure that money is spent well and on schedule.
The many critics "of the day after" are also raising doubts on the control of the data that will be produced by the activities financed by the program, on the confidentiality of the same and on the fact that, by managing ESA industrial contracts, our companies will be under the caudine forks of a French and German control that would infringe our rights and the privacy of our proposals.
In part this is true, the risk is there; but once again we ask ourselves where they were and what they said and did the same people so wounded in their fiery Italian spirit when for years we had a director of Estec, Italian, but very close, also for many years of friendship, to France and, more recently, how hardly anyone, except this newspaper and very few others, has expressed serious doubts about the appointment of an Italian as director of Esrin, given the objective conditions to which she is subjected.
We must ask ourselves the reason for a posthumous and in fact useless awakening in this form: it is more serious to recognize that Italy has been losing more and more political weight in ESA for (too) a long time, unfortunately also due to the choice of candidates in the positions apical.
The time has come, on a political level, to make an in-depth reflection in order to start off on the right foot, gathering real professional skills to support them (there are still many of them).
It is increasingly evident that it is necessary to rebuild the whole sector, from the new ASI structure to the Italian positioning in top management positions in Euspa, the new agency for European space programs, and in the General Management controlled by the Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services. , the former French Minister of the Breton economy.
By now it should also be clear to the politicians of our house as the future for Space will be built in Europe and not in ESA. Let's try as President Draghi is doing to revive the country.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/asi-pnrr-e-non-solo-cosa-combina-colao-sullo-spazio/ on Thu, 18 Nov 2021 08:57:29 +0000.