Thales Alenia Space
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In the Spotlight

Available in
Mar 23 2023
In the Spotlight

Thales Alenia Space is anticipating the needs of the future and developing solutions to meet them.

 

Autonomous stratospheric geostationary platforms

As part of a consortium notably including the Pégase competitiveness cluster, Thales Alenia Space is studying a new concept for an autonomous stratospheric platform midway between a satellite and a UAV. It will have a design lifetime of more than 5 years.

Perched at an altitude of around 20 kilometres to scan airspace, this platform will be able to host payloads of 200 kg delivering 4 kW for a broad range of applications such as:

  • border and maritime piracy surveillance
  • boosting of GSM networks for major public events
  • GPS augmentation over areas of dense traffic

 

Extra-terrestrial sample collection systems

Thales Alenia Space is prime contractor on the two ExoMars exploration missions (2016 and 2018) for the European Space Agency (ESA).

The 2018 mission will fly a descent module to Mars carrying a rover designed to collect soil samples from beneath the surface at depths down to 2 meters. For this purpose, ESA has asked Thales Alenia Space’s domain experts in Turin to look at developing a technology capable of recovering unique samples directly from Mars. The proposed concept is based on an inflatable capture mechanism.

 

Smart telecommunications antennas

Thales Alenia Space has developed a new tool that gives virtual network operators (VNOs) more transparency and more autonomy in managing their telecom networks.

Using cutting-edge software, VNOs — interfacing with the control centre, satellite owner, the satellite itself and end-users — will now be able

  • to allocate satellite capacity to customers,
  • commission and maintain end-users’ modems,
  • carry out necessary tests and checks,
  • supervise their network (history and statistics).

 

Designed for civil and military telecom service operators and suppliers, this solution will significantly reduce the operating cost of managing telecom networks.