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The company is founded on forty years of experience acquired by working in the realisation of more than 200 satellites for telecommunications (Intelsat, Hot Bird, Arabsat, Italsat, Globalstar, Sicral), for science and exploration (Hipparcos, Beppo Sax, Cassini-Huygens, Rosetta, Integral, Mars Express and Venus Express) and for remote sensing (ERS 1 and 2, Envisat, Met-Op, COSMO-SkyMed). Not forgetting the vital contributions made in the development of the orbiting infrastructures (the International Space Station and logistic transport modules).
The company co-operates with the major international space industries and in the programmes of the most prestigious institutions such as NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. Thales Alenia Space Italia employs about 2,300 people and has sites in Rome, Turin, L'Aquila and Milan.

Carlo Alberto Penazzi
President and CEO of Thales Alenia Space Italia
Born in Lugo (Ravenna) on 18/04/1942, he obtained a degree in Electronic Engineering from Bologna University in 1967. After serving as an officer in the Italian Navy, he joined Selenia S.p.A. In 1996 he was appointed Director of Radar Systems Division in Alenia Difesa, in 1998 Radar Director for Alenia Marconi Systems N.V. and in 2000 Chief Technical Officer for the same company. He joined Alenia Spazio S.p.A. in 2002 as General Manager and was appointed CEO in 2004. He has also been a Board Member and President of Alelco S.p.A./Finmeccanica Group, a Member of the Alenia Marconi Systems S.p.A. Board of Directors, President of RITEC (Research and Technology Group) for AIAD (Italian Aerospace, Systems and Defence Association).

ROME: MORE SPACE FOR TECHNOLOGY
ROME HEADQUARTER: THE STRATEGIC CENTRE OF THE COMPANY
The Thales Alenia Space Italia centres in Rome (the Headquarter of the company and the Satellite Integration Centre) are located in the Eastern suburbs of the city, close to other specialised Telecommunication and Information Technology companies, in a high level industrial area designated as the industrial Technological Centre of the capital city. The main production lines in the Rome plants concern Remote Sensing, Telecommunications and Satellite Navigation. The Headquarter hosts offices and technological laboratories of excellence (650 sqm are occupied by the 100,000 class Clean Rooms, used for activities of development, integration and test). All the projects are therefore under the direct management control from strategic/decision phase to their design phase. The Management System and Equipment Design activities for Telecommunications and Earth Observation satellites, the payload fundamental elements as antennas and on-board equipment are carried out here.

SATELLITE INTEGRATION CENTRE: WHERE SATELLITES ARE BORN
In the Satellite Integration Centre, the various components required for the realisation of small and medium sized satellites are integrated by highly specialised personnel (engineers and technicians), the Centre has adopted an innovative process organisation, based on the subdivision of the overall process into re-configurable "Technological Islands". Each island is fully autonomous in terms of human resources and support equipment, and is in charge of a self standing activity of the integration process. Work is carried out on up to a maximum of 22 satellites, simultaneously located in the various islands, with real time management of any bottleneck, thus enabling the optimisation of production peaks. This organisation allows the integration of a production on the order of 50 satellites per year at a reduced cost. The centre is provided with a very large clean room and with laboratories used for testing satellites and their components, including the simulation of extreme environmental conditions in which they will operate in orbit. Testing capabilities include propulsion sub system, solar arrays and antennas, as well vibrations, mass properties and alignments.

TOWARDS THE FUTURE: THE GALILEO, COSMO AND SICRAL PROGRAMMES
Like a "time machine", the Rome Thales Alenia Space Italia laboratories, through their instruments and devices, enable us to travel into the future, to visualise how our lives will change through technological innovations. In particular, in the Satellite Integration Centre, work is progressing on programmes such as Galileo, COSMO and Sicral, all projects of international value. Galileo is the European programme for Satellite Navigation, based on a constellation of 30 satellites which, over the next few years, will provide all mobile users with their position, in real time and with a margin of error of only a few metres. This is an important challenge for Europe as a whole, capable of providing enormous benefits in economic and industrial terms. COSMO-SkyMed, the dual (civil and military) constellation for Earth observation, is an equally important technological and industrial challenge. COSMO comprises 4 satellites based on X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), suitable for day and night observation under all meteorological conditions. It will contribute to the management of environmental risks and of safety. Sicral is a system for military telecommunications, produced for the Italian Ministry of Defence, to ensure strategic (video, audio and data) and tactical communications for the Italian armed forces deployed in Italy or abroad (e.g. for peace keeping missions), as well as mobile communications with terrestrial, maritime and aerial platforms.

TURIN: THE FUTURE HAS ITS OWN SPACE
TOWARDS THE STARS
The Thales Alenia Space Italia Turin plant has always been specialised in the design and production of scientific satellites as well as in the field of orbiting infrastructures, contributing over 50% of the habitable volume for the International Space Station and becoming a worldwide centre of excellence in this field. Today, Thales Alenia Space Italia Turin is an industrial reality, perfectly inserted in the production, economic and social context of the Turin area. More than 30,000 sqm of the 50,000 sqm of the Turin facilities are occupied by laboratories, clean rooms and production areas. This witnesses the high production level of the site, which has been fully involved, over the last few years, in the realisation of the major European scientific missions (Integral, Mars Express, Venus Express, Rosetta) and in the production of key elements for the International Space Station. The plant is fully equipped with test facilities, simulating all the environmental conditions of deepest space.

ALTEC CENTRE: MISSION TECHNOLOGY
Close to the Turin Thales Alenia Space Italia plant it is located ALTEC (Advanced Logistics, Technological and Engineering Centre), the shareholders of which are Thales Alenia Space-Italia (51%), ASI (29%) and ICARUS ScpA (a public majority company which represents the interests of numerous regional local bodies). ALTEC is an international centre of excellence to supply engineering support services for operations in orbits, for the utilisation of modules of the International Space Station and of other orbiting infrastructures. The Centre is provided with sophisticated laboratories, such as the NBTF (National Buoyancy Test Facility) for training astronauts and verifying operational procedures in simulated absence of gravity. The Centre also hosts the "Mission Support Room", which is connected to NASA and ESA Centres.

SPACE IS OUR HOME: THE MODULES FOR THE ISS AND THE EXPLORATION PROBES
The International Space Station is the largest orbiting infrastructure ever. Thales Alenia Space Italia, and in particular the Turin plant, gave fundamental contribution to its development, realising various modules of the "orbiting home". Among the most significant elements, there are the three MPLM (Multi-Purpose Logistic Modules), for the transportation of goods to and from ISS on board the Space Shuttle missions. The MPLM (Leonardo, Raffaello and Donatello) have carried out several missions since 2001 and have been designed to be used for at least 25 space missions each. Other highlights of the Thales Alenia Space Italia Turin activities for the Space Station are the European Columbus Laboratory for the micro-gravity research; the ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle), automatic logistic system with a maximum payload of 7,300 kilos of supplies and materials for the astronauts; The NODES 2 and 3, elements which connect the pressurised modules of the "orbiting home"; and the CUPOLA, an extraordinary observatory which will enable astronauts aboard the Station to manoeuvre the remote controlled robotic arm during the assembly of the various modules. Scientific satellites and probes for exploring the Universe represent the further area of excellence of Turin plant. The most recent programs include the satellites Herschel (for the infrared observation of the Universe), Planck (to observe the cosmic background radiation), GOCE (to make the first high-resolution global map of the terrestrial gravitational field). In the field of the solar System exploration, after the integration of Rosetta (a mission to a comet), Mars Express and Venus Express (missions to Mars and Venus), the plant is deeply involved in the development of Bepi Colombo (a mission to explore Mercury).

L'AQUILA: THE PEAK OF TECHNOLOGICAL RESEARCH
QUALITY TECHNOLOGY, SUCCESSFUL IDEAS
Thales Alenia Space Italia has a site in the capital of the Abruzzo region, since twenty years. The plant is specialised in space equipment, which, thanks to high level facilities and to professionalism of the personnel, has reached a rank of excellence in both technology and quality of production. Technological developments and industrialisation of products are carried out, as well as complete production of electronic devices, hybrids, antennas and composite material structures for a wide range of space applications (remote sensing, telecommunications, radar and military applications, etc.).The availability of extremely complex and accurate instruments and equipment, together with the presence of professional, technologically competent personnel, has guaranteed extremely high quality standards, while the advent of new technologies has led to the optimisation of production cycles. All this within a structure with over 5,000 sqm of Clean Rooms and controlled areas.

EXCELLENCE PAYS
Thanks to the constant development of technological know-how, e.g. LTCC - Low Temperature Ceramic Co-firing technology, state of the art products are produced in L'Aquila plant, including microwave components, numerical platforms and radar equipment. In the fields of antennas and composite materials, the development of grid reflectors and ultra-light reflectors in Ka band and active antennas for navigation and remote sensing are highlighted. The following are some of the numerous programmes to which the L'Aquila plant has made significant contributions: Cassini-Huygens, Mars Express, Rosetta, Venus Express, Sharad, Koreasat, COSMO-SkyMed, Sicral, Galileo and numerous commercial programmes including CD Radio, SPAINSAT, Intelsat IX, NIMIQ 2 and Yamal 200. Through these contributions, the L'Aquila plant has actively contributed to scientific research, the exploration of deepest space and numerous celestial bodies and to the development of advanced telecommunications systems and sophisticated Earth observation systems.

MILAN AND FLORENCE: HOME OF SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE HIGHEST LEVEL
The Thales Alenia Space Italia Milan plant has a significant role in the development and production of scientific instruments for space applications. With the participation to the most important European and Italian programs and the collaboration with the most important international industries, it is now an advanced structure in the realisation of advanced scientific systems. The Milan plant, with its subsidiary Florence (Tuscany) facility, has carried out design and production activities of equipment and sub-systems for a large number of programmes, both on-board and ground-based (on-board computers, command and control, scientific data processing, mass memory, sensors and actuators for satellites and launchers, EGSE). Production activities live together with advanced experimentation and research, especially in Florence plant, active in the design of advanced systems in fields such as ionic propulsion, electron guns, plasma generators. The scientific research activities have developed an extraordinary competence in the design and development of space telescopes, sub-millimetre space radiometers for cosmological observations and devices for scientific studies in absence of gravity.

TECHNOLOGY AND KNOW-HOW TO THE BENEFIT OF SPACE PROGRAMMES
If during the next few years we will improve our knowledge of Saturn, this will be also due to the sophisticated electronic instrumentation produced in the Thales Alenia Space Italia plants of Milan and Florence for the Cassini-Huygens mission to explore the planet and its moon Titan. Similarly, these centres are contributing electronic equipment for COSMO, Radarsat 2, Cryosat, Goce and Planck missions. The development of the ALTEA (Anomalous Long Term Effects on Astronauts) facility for the Space Station, a helmet with sensors capable of detecting and analysing particles, especially from solar wind and extra-galactic cosmic rays, which enter astronauts' brains. Another advanced instrument will be installed on board the International Space Station: the Mice Drower System (MDS), a device to control the state of osteoporosis in mice.