Detail Project and Funding

The first one, the project “SAPERE STRONG”, linked to the theme of space exploration and access to space, aims to enhance the operation of national space in this area. The aim is the realization of a “space tug”, which will allow the launch of payloads/instruments and platforms, starting from intermediate orbits such as those of the space station, with considerable savings in weight and a strong optimization of the payload/platform ratio itself. The main objective in this context is to improve the competitiveness of the Italian community in the field of “electric propulsion”, developing some functions in addition to those that the domestic industry is studying in Europe, with the support of ASI and ESA programs derived ATV (e.g. MPCV / SM), consolidating the knowledge and the development of enabling technologies and systems engineering “end-to-end.”

The second area, the project “SAPERE SAFE”, has as its primary purpose the improvement of “services for emergency management” (crisis management) in different domains, with a wider use of “space technology”; it is in fact today universally recognized that the management of post-emergency phase of a crisis event can not ignore the possibility of observing from space, to communicate with space infrastructure, or to know their precise location. The project focuses in particular the need to improve revisits time , having sensors of a different nature (eg radar, optical) and to be able to deploy these instruments, for example in formations and constellations of satellites, more quickly than a infrastructures based on larger spacecrafts. This implies on the one hand the systemic analysis of the requirements that these constellations and/or formations must meet and other technological developments enabling a strong miniaturization, an optimization of the payload / platform and the study of methods of access to space (Quick Space Responsiveness). The first objective is, through the study and analysis of criticalities, to improve the quality of associated services and improve access mode providing rapid and simplified, with the ability to “data fusion” between different kinds of sensors and geo-location all the information. The possibility of the development of this management platform towards an advanced Command Center and Advanced control will be developed in order to manage in the most effective steps Pre-Disaster, Disaster Response, Post Disaster, using the various space assets such as satellite monitoring system database and external emergency communication system based on “asset” space-bandwidth and location systems and future (ie. Galileo). The project also includes the study and development of “demonstrators” / enabling technologies for the space component, depending on the types of services identified in the field of optical instruments, technologies for deployable antennas in flight, integrated electronics for radar and compact elements HW / SW for the verification of avionics of minisatellite.