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2021: A Year of Major Successes for Thales Alenia Space
January 11, 2022 | ThalesEstimated reading time: 5 minutes
Thales Alenia Space, the joint company between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), logged a number of successes in 2021, including key contracts, major industrial milestones and launches, a series of innovations and new capital investments.
Space to Explore: returning astronauts to the Moon and space exploration on the agenda in 2021?
Thales Alenia Space confirmed its global leadership in orbital infrastructures last year, by confirming the development contract for the communications and refueling module ESPRIT on the upcoming Gateway lunar space station. This business win followed two contracts signed in 2020 to produce the I-HAB and HALO pressurized modules. Gateway is being developed within the scope of NASA’s Artemis program, designed to return astronauts to the Moon by 2024. The lunar space station will also be used as a waystation to prepare crewed missions to Mars.
Thales Alenia Space also announced an order for two more pressurized cargo modules on Cygnus, the resupply vessel for the International Space Station, and won a contract from Axiom Space to build two pressurized modules for the first commercial space station, Axiom.
Thales Alenia Space is also playing a major role on the Orion spacecraft, designed to carry astronauts to the Moon as part of the Artemis program, especially as supplier of thermomechanical systems for the European Service Module (ESM). In 2021, Thales Alenia Space participated in the final integration of critical systems on the second module (ESM 2), and also signed a contract amendment providing for a similar contribution to ESM 4, 5 and 6.
Other highlights in 2021 included significant progress on major programs such as the second ExoMars mission, to be launched in September 2022, and EUCLID, a science mission dedicated to the study of dark energy and matter.
Space to Observe and Protect: second COSMO-SkyMed second-generation satellite ready for launch; SWOT oceanographic satellite passes new milestone
The second COSMO-SkyMed second-generation satellite was shipped from the company’s Rome plant in December 2021 to Cape Canaveral, where it’s now being readied for the planned launch in late January. The second generation of COSMO-SkyMed radar observation satellites is being built by Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor on behalf of the Italian space agency and defense ministry. The payload and platform for SWOT, the French-American oceanographic satellite, were integrated in 2021, a major milestone for this revolutionary satellite, slated for launch in 2022.
Space to Connect: selected for Telesat’s planned constellation and a leading position in the geostationary communications satellite market?
Capitalizing on its globally recognized expertise in constellations, Thales Alenia Space was chosen by the operator Telesat in February 2021 to build Lightspeed, a constellation of 298 telecom satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). The Lightspeed network will offer data rates of several terabits/second worldwide, providing secure, high-speed and high-performance connectivity for professional applications.
Also in February 2021, Thales Alenia Space and Satelit Nusantara Tiga (SNT) announced that they had finalized funding for the development of the Satria broadband communications satellite, designed to bridge the digital divide in Indonesia. This key step follows the preliminary agreement to start various activities for the satellite, signed in early September 2020.Page 1 of 2
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