Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Vogon Today

Selected News from the Galaxy

StartMag

Vega, Ariane and Thales Alenia Space. What will France and Italy do in space

3 years ago babelfish

Vega, Ariane and Thales Alenia Space. What will France and Italy do in space

What does the joint Italy-France declaration signed in Rome between the French Minister of Economy and Riccardo Fraccaro, Undersecretary of State to the Prime Minister with responsibility for space foresee

“Italy and France share important industrial interests in the space sector, ranging from upstream to downstream via launchers. Both countries are aware of the importance of space activities in terms of technological sovereignty, economic development, safety and environmental protection. For this reason, Undersecretary Fraccaro and Minister Le Maire agreed on the need to strengthen cooperation between Italy and France in the space sector ”.

This is what we read in a note released at the end of the meeting between the undersecretary with responsibility for space policies Riccardo Fraccaro and the Minister of Economy, Finance and the Relaunch of France responsible for space activities Bruno Le Maire which took place on Wednesday November 25.

In particular, Fraccaro and Le Maire have "agreed on the usefulness of an ever greater coordination between countries in the field of space within the various community bodies, in particular within the European Space Agency (ESA), which is essential to achieve more and more ambitious ".

Precisely in the context of ESA, the day before the heads of delegation of the ESA member states had approved the official candidacy of Josef Aschbacher as the agency's new director general.

The candidate supported by Palazzo Chigi (and sponsored by Fraccaro) Simonetta Di Pippo was rejected .

It was a severe blow to our country. Italy, with an ever higher contribution to the ESA budget of the order of two billion and two hundred million, is behind only Germany and France as a contributor to the agency.

All the details.

FRACCARO: "NEED TO STRENGTHEN ITALY-FRANCE COOPERATION IN THE SPACE SECTOR"

FORWARD ALL WITH THALES ALENIA SPACE (JV THALES AND LEONARDO)

During the meeting, we read, “there was a common appreciation for the assignment of contracts for the construction of the two sentries of the Copernicus program, Cimr and Chime , to the Italian-French group Thales Alenia Space. Fraccaro and Le Maire therefore underlined the strategic value of the Earth Observation programs ”.

The reference is in fact to the Earth monitoring program from the Copernicus Space of the European Commission and ESA which is enriched with 3 new missions, for 6 sentinel satellites in total. The contracts for the development of these new high priority sentinels were signed by ESA on Friday 13 November 2020 with Thales Alenia Space – a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%) – in Italy.

Thales Alenia Space is the first contractor for Cimr with Ohb Italia main partner for the instrument and Hps (High Performance Space Structure System GmbH) for the antenna reflector. Moreover, he is prime contractor and integrator of Chime together with Ohb and Leonardo as main partners for the payload. For each mission, the total investment is close to 500 million euros, with an impact of at least 50% on the entire Italian supply chain.

LEONARDO ALSO ON BOARD

Furthermore, the Italian aerospace and defense giant Leonardo will contribute to the realization of the hyperspectral payload of the new Chime mission. For the Sentinelle Chime and Cimr satellites of the European Copernicus program, of which Tas is the prime contractor, Leonardo will also supply the stellar attitude sensors – the star trackers – for the correct positioning of the satellite in orbit.

RESUME FLIGHTS FROM VEGA LAUNCHER

Returning to the meeting at Palazzo Chigi between Fraccaro and Le Maire, both insisted on the need to "resume flight as quickly as possible" of the Vega launcher.

In fact, last November 17, the Vega rocket (designed and built by the Italian Avio in the Colleferro plants) went off track. It was the second for Vega in less than two years, following the successful launch of the VV16 mission last September 3 with the debut of the SSMS (Small Spacecraft Mission Service) distributor .

Introduced in 2012, this small rocket complemented the capabilities held by Europeans with the heavy launcher Ariane.

THE CHALLENGES FOR ARIANE 6

In addition to Vega, in fact, the two representatives of France and Italy underlined the importance of the other Ariane project, a series of space launchers optimized for geostationary transfer orbits, developed by Ariane Group in the role of prime contractor.

The family of European space launchers today is challenged by strong competition that focuses on lower costs. From the American SpaceX (founded by Elon Musk) and Blue Origin (by Jeff Bezos) to the Chinese launcher Long March .

The EU is developing two launchers: Ariane 6 with the French-German Ariane Group as prime contractor, destined to bring the satellites into high orbit, and Vega C with the Italian Avio, for medium-small satellites in low orbit.

The European Space Agency has developed Ariane 6, whose first flight is expected to take place in 2022.

Paris and Rome therefore intend to join forces for the development of European launchers.

But it should not be forgotten that exactly one year ago, on the occasion of the ESA ministerial, a report by the French Senate recommended focusing on the development of Ariane 6 (with the Franco-German Ariane Group as prime contractor) and questioning the developments of Vega E ( today in the early stages of technological development) . From an industrial point of view, the key roles in the Vega program are played by Italian companies: Elv, a joint-stock company 70% owned by Avio and 30% by ASI, responsible for the development of the launcher as a whole. Avio is responsible for the development and construction of the four stages, three with solid propellant and the Avum with liquid propellant.

WORKING GROUP BETWEEN ITALY, FRANCE AND GERMANY

Faced with the challenges of the European space industry and in particular on future launchers, Fraccaro and Le Maire announced the creation of a working group between the main European countries involved in space (and major ESA contributors): Italy, France and Germany.

"We also agreed with Minister Le Maire on the usefulness of an ever greater coordination between countries in the field of space within the various community bodies, in particular within the European Space Agency, which is essential to achieve ever more ambitious goals" said Undersecretary Fraccaro.

SILENCE ON THE DÉBACLE OF THE ESA MANAGEMENT GENERAL

Therefore, there was no comment from the representative of the government with responsibility for the space regarding the debacle within the ESA on the assignment of the general management.

As Professor Ezio Bussoletti, former ASI vice president underlined in Start Magazine in recent days, “since 2003, Italy has no longer held this strategic position despite being the agency's third contributor. It was in the facts and in the initial convictions of the European partners that this year the place fell to Italy after the 6-year mandate of the German DG Wörner and the 12 years of French management of JJ Dordain ”.

But according to some insiders, the CV of the candidate selected by the Conte government (sponsored by Fraccaro) "was indefensible".

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/vega-ariane-e-thales-alenia-space-cosa-faranno-francia-e-italia-nello-spazio/ on Sun, 29 Nov 2020 07:40:41 +0000.