Once again, Alenia Spazio, a Finmeccanica company and a leader in the space
sector, will be present at the Le Bourget Air Show, Paris, one of the most
important appointments in the international aerospace calendar, being held
this year from June 17th to 24th.
At Finmeccanica’s 900-square metre stand (Hall 2A, N. E19), Alenia Spazio
will be demonstrating how advanced technology can contribute to making the
world a safer, faster and more efficient place, particularly for transport
and communications, by presenting, with scale models, of three programmes,
Galileo, Sicral and Cosmo SkyMed.
The company of the Finmeccanica group is industrial leader for the Galileo
programme, a constellation of 30 satellites in orbit 23,000 km above the
Earth.
Destined to become a key element for the movement of vehicles, people and
goods, Galileo will be launched in 2006 to provide global (i.e. anywhere in
the world) and multi-mode (i.e. for every category of transport) coverage
for exclusively civilian applications. At the service of business and
citizens, the satellite will be used widely and will be able to operate in
several areas: agriculture and fishing, ecology, mobile communications and
personal mobility. All this makes it one of the most innovative projects
which is going to have important repercussions in the near future in
improving the quality of life.
The first step in the construction of Galileo is the navigation payload for
EGNOS carried on Artemis, the telecommunications satellite built by Alenia
Spazio for the European Space Agency, which will be launched this coming
July from the Kourou base in French Guyana.
The satellite, distinguished for its advanced technological standards and
carbon fibre structure, will influence the development of future
communication systems in Europe and around the world.
At the French show, the Italian company, a leader in the space sector and
active for over 30 years in the field of advanced telecommunications, will
also present a 1:8 scale model of Sicral, the first national system of
military telecommunications via satellite.
Developed in a totally autonomous design by Alenia Spazio for the Sitab
consortium, Sicral was launched in February of this year. It is
characterised by its capacity to adapt to even the most difficult
operational conditions and its low running costs. Autonomy, mobility,
safety, flexibility and inter-operability complete the picture, making
Sicral a perfect defence network for land, sea and sky.
Four months after its launch, Sicral has completed the operations for its
definitive orbital insertion at 16,16o East, and is now carrying out link
tests with the various types of user terminal.
From telecommunications to remote sensing. Cosmo SkyMed is a satellite
constellation offering constant monitoring of the land and buildings.
The system, which will be built by Alenia Spazio for the Italian Space
Agency, is made up of seven satellites in low Earth orbit carrying radar and
optical instruments. It will have applications in a great number of areas:
in agriculture, for example, it could be used for crop control and analysis;
in environmental monitoring it will be useful in observing natural disasters
such as landslides, fires and floods, and in coastal control. Finally, it
will have an interesting use in the drawing up of high-resolution
geographical maps.
