Space: an increaSingly Strategic priority

by the Editorial Staff

The year 2022 was a paramount year for the future of Space, a sector characterized by a remarkable growth, not only from the commercial business point of view, but also thanks to the momentum brought by Governments and large space agencies to respond to the great challenges of sovereignty, security, connectivity and environmental protection; to the point that the 2022 Ministerial Council of the European Space Agency ended up allocating a budget of 16.9 billion euros, with a 17 percent increase over the former 2019 Ministerial Council.

It is in this context that Thales Alenia Space fits in as the key player in a successful year with major events forthcoming in every domain in 2023: from Observation to Telecommunications, from Navigation to Space Sustainability, from Science to Infrastructure. Undoubtedly, an important milestone was reached in the geostationary telecommunications satellite market: thanks to the contracts to produce six out of ten satellites awarded to Thales Alenia Space on the open global market, the company has confirmed its global leadership in this field in 2022 as well, that is for two consecutive years.

Other highlights of the year include the successful launch of NASA's Artemis 1 mission, seeking to establi- sh a sustainable human presence on the Moon. Thales Alenia Space contributed with key technologies to the European service module of the Orion capsule, deve loped under a European Space Agency (ESA) contract, that will be employed for manned space missions to the Moon and deep space. But Thales Alenia Space is also continuously developing the Lunar Space Sta tion's HALO, ESpr IT and I-Hab modules.

In addition, the company has also signed a study con tract with ESA for the development of a payload for extracting oxygen from lunar rock. In this wake, 2023 opens under the banner of growth and of new "mis sions." A key initiative is undoubtedly the investments on a new space constellation plant that reinforces the role of rome’s facility, where all the Telecommunica tions and Observation constellations have been inte grated and where a new integration center is being planned to leverage the latest digital technologies for space manufacturing, adapted to production capacity and especially to the evolution of the business model, taking into account the growing integration between space and digital technologies.

The year 2023 is also marked by a major Science event. In fact, the launch of Euclid, the ESA mission for astro nomy and astrophysics aiming at investigating the nature of dark matter and dark energy, with major contributions from the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the French Space Agency (CNES, is planned. Thales Alenia Space is the prime contractor to produce the satellite and is at the head of an industrial consortium made up by major European space companies and relying on scientific contributions from universities and specialized research centers. Over the past two years, Thales Alenia Space's workforce grew by about 350 units with an impact on the SME’s supply chain. The investments put in place by Governments over the years have been under the banner of continuity and are generating important results: in this research area alone, in the past two years, the space research community amounted to 6,000 employees, whereas there are over 7,000 today.

by Barbara Ranghelli

"High-speed Internet in the most isolated and hard-to-reach rural regions of the world. Ideal for 4K streaming, video calling, and online gaming'. On February 5, 2023, after Tim faced major internet outages, Elon Musk went on Twitter to target Italian users rwith his Starlink satellite offer including: '5 different plans: residential, business, mobile homes, maritime, aviation'.

The founder and CTO of Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) first announced he would provide satellite Internet services in 2015. In 2019 the company started launching low-orbit satellites. The company's goal in its first operational stage is to reach a full 4,408-satellite constellation. The closeness to Earth and the vastness of the network explain why Starlink promises worldwide connectivity by the end of 2023. Connectivity has been available in Italy since 2022.

Fibre optics is the fastest Internet connection technology now available, but it has a limit: due to its physical nature, it cannot be brought to remote locations, where the satellite solution could prove to be the most effective one. The goal, as Musk himself emphasized, is to provide broadband internet services in every corner of the planet, through a network of at least 12,000 satellites offering a high-speed, low-latency service that would be unlike any other satellite internet system.

Starlink is not the only constellation to provide such a service.

Back in 2019, OneWeb announced it would provide global coverage thanks to a network of 648 satellites orbiting at an altitude of 1,200 km by the end of 2023. However, the group, consisting of 18 London-based companies, encountered several difficulties. In 2020, OneWeb was saved from bankruptcy by Barthi Global, an Indian multinational corporation, and by the British Government. In 2022, the geopolitical situation following the war in Ukraine made it impossible to use the Russian Soyuz launchers. A total of 502 OneWeb satellites are currently in orbit, the last batch of which was launched atop Indian Lvm3 launchers, and also competitor SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets. OneWeb's growth strategy also envisages a merger with European giant satellite operator Eutelsat by 2023. In 2020, the rival French company signed an agreement with Tim to expand its offer and reach the most isolated areas in Italy.

While Starlink and OneWeb are already operational, other companies are working to join the satellite internet sector.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, announced the Kuiper project in 2018. His aerospace company, Blue Origin, was already competing with SpaceX over space flights. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) greenlighted the project following an update of the orbital debris management protocol. Even in the Kuiper project there is a SpaceX 'tentacle': Rajeev Badyal, Head of Project Kuiper at Amazon Project Kuiper, served as SpaceX’s Vice President of Satellites, in charge of its Starlink division up until 2018. Amazon Project Kuiper envisages the launch of 3,236 satellites on different orbital planes, at an altitude between 590 and 630 kilometers. The launch of the first KuiperSat is scheduled to take pla ce in 2023.