In the context of National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), Telespazio - one j between Leonardo (67%) and Thales (33%) - won a tender from theEuropean Space Agency (ESA) to provide the Flight Operations Segment (FOS) of the Italian IRIDE satellite constellation, relating to the NIMBUS and PLATiNO platforms.
IRIDE is a project born on the initiative of the Italian Government, thanks to the resources of the PNRR, which will be completed by 2026 under the management of ESA in collaboration with theItalian Space Agency (ASI), for the construction of a satellite infrastructure for Earth observation intended to provide services to the Public Administration.
The contract for the FOS segment has a value of approximately 21 million Euros. Telespazio as prime contractor will make use of a national industrial team made up of Aiko, Leonardo, Next Ingegneria dei Sistemi, Planetek Italia, Serco Italia and Thales Alenia Space Italia, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%).
The Flight Operations Segment will ensure the command and control functions, orbit determination and collision avoidance, payload data acquisition, monitoring and planning of the satellites of the IRIDE constellation.
The contracted activities include the design, development, validation and maintenance of the segment which must be completed by the first half of 2026, as envisaged by the PNRR.
For the IRIDE satellites, Telespazio will ensure the preparation of flight operations, training activities, the creation and validation of the network of ground stations, the execution of the LEOP (Launch and Early Orbit Phase) and commissioning phases.
