In the Spotlight

Unveiling the digital technologies of our future Space Smart Factory

In the Spotlight

Unveiling the digital technologies of our future Space Smart Factory

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    Discover some of the most advanced digital technologies for satellite construction that will be used in our Space Smart Factory

    Over 6 decades, the human activities in space have evolved from extraordinary endeavors to everyday processes, impacting lives of billions of people on Earth. Space technology today helps with a plethora of services: from communication and navigation, to weather forecasting and climate change effects monitoring, to natural disasters preparedness and improving humanitarian response, just to name a few. And it continues evolving and accelerating trough the development of digital technologies.

    Industry 4.0 is revolutionizing the space industry. One of the largest digital facilities of its kind in Europe, Thales Alenia Space’s Space Smart Factory will leverage these cutting-edge digital technologies to enable the seamless manufacturing of sophisticated space components, with the aim of producing over 100 satellites a year.

    space smart factory

    These state-of-the-art digital technologies are designed to support the human operator, contribute to data continuity, improve efficiency, sustainability and quality of the Assembly, Integration and Testing processes of space assets, making far-reaching innovation possible in the space sector. Human activities will be supported and facilitated by digital tools such as the Manufacturing Execution System and Manufacturing Resource Planning, integrated with Robotics and supported by virtualization and simulation technologies such as Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Virtual Testing and industrial processes simulation.

    The Space Smart Factory will be part of an ecosystem of space factories in Italy, equipped with highly versatile and flexible clean rooms to support integration and testing of a wide range of satellites, from different sizes and fields of application. The factory is currently being built at Tecnopolo Tiburtino in Rome, and it will be completed in mid-2025, with a total surface area of 21.000 square meters including 5.000 square meters dedicated to reconfigurable clean rooms.

    It will use automation and digital processes to offer high production capacity for advanced satellites, both in the microsatellite and small satellite sectors, including the PLATiNO and Nimbus satellite families. It will also enable quick turnaround of innovative, modular, high-performance platforms for high-revisit constellations.

    The evolution of the space industry is a remarkable journey of innovation and collaboration, set to further improve and facilitate our lives, pushing boundaries and exploring new frontiers on our Planet and beyond. The Space Smart Factory will be a definitive proof of this transformative impact of space technology.