Telespazio has been awarded a contract by the Italian Foreign Ministry (MAE) to build a Satellite Services Centre to support the activities of Italian organisations, companies and institutions working on Iraqi territory.

Telespazio’s offer meets the needs of our fellow countrymen in Iraq for broadband satellite communication services, enabling data and voice transmission, internet, videoconferencing, telemedicine and distance learning.

The Satellite Services Centre is currently being built within the existing infrastructure of Telespazio’s Fucino Space Centre.

Telespazio is taking part in Rome’s third Festival of Sciences, which will be held at the Auditorium Parco della Musica 14 to 21 January. At the Filas/Lazio Region exhibition area, Telespazio, a Finmeccanica/Thales company, will present its Love Planet Earth 2008 calendar, dedicated – in the International Polar Year – to the coldest places on Earth, those global warming has had the biggest impact.

Through magnificent high-resolution satellite images, the calendar illustrates how Alaska, Siberia and Antarctica are the first regions to show the visible signs of our planet’s suffering.

2008 will be an important year for reflection and action in our efforts to tackle issues such as pollution, changes to ecosystems and the melting ice caps. The Arctic and Antarctic play a key role in regulating the Planet’s temperatures and weather systems. Understanding this mechanism is a great challenge for science, which requires continuous, global and highly detailed imagery data. Satellite images can provide objective information on these phenomena, and help to identify solutions that provide a better future for the Planet.

The third Festival of Sciences (under the banner "Global ConScience") will bring together in Rome some of the world's leading scientists, philosophers, economists and politicians, and will be especially pleased to welcome experts Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.

Telespazio is proud to present its Love Planet Earth 2008 calendar, dedicated - in the International Polar Year - to the coldest places on Earth, those global warming has had the biggest impact.

Through magnificent high-resolution satellite images, the calenar illustrates how Alaska, Siberia and Antarctica are the first regions to show the visible igns of our planet’s suffering. 2008 will be an important year for reflection and action in our efforts to tackle issues such as pollution, changes to ecosystems and the melting ice caps.

The Arctic and Antarctic play a key role in regulating the Planet’s temperatures and weather systems. Understanding this mechanism is a great challenge for science, which requires continuous, global and highly detailed imagery data. Satellite images can provide objective information on these phenomena, and help to identify solutions that provide a better future for the Planet.

This morning, at 3.30 Italian time, a Boeing Delta II rocket launched the second satellite of the Earth observation constellation, COSMO-SkyMed, Vandenberg US air force base.

Approximately 68 minutes after the launch, the satellite has been acquired and, through a series of operations, guided towards its final orbit by the Telespazio Space Center in Fucino (Italy).

The Italian COSMO-SkyMed system, the first dual-use global Earth observation constellation, will entail the launch of four radar satellites that can "see" in all weather and light conditions.

The system comprises four radar satellites for dual use (civil/government, military and commercial) and is designed to monitor and survey the entire globe for civil protection (environmental risk management), strategic (defence and national security), and scientific and commercial purposes.
It will be particularly useful for applications in environmental risk management, emergencies, defence and national security and will thus be able to provide assessments of situations on a global scale.

COSMO-SkyMed will be integrated with two French optic satellites (Helios II) and, thanks to an agreement between the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and its Argentine counterpart (CONAE), will then work in conjunction with the two Argentine Saocom satellites to create the Siasge programme. The COSMO-SkyMed system is one of the “building blocks” for the European GMES (Global Monitoring for Environmental Security) programme.

The third satellite will also be launched the Vandenberg air force base, California, in summer 2008.

Since its launch into orbit in June 2007, the COSMO-SkyMed 1 satellite has successfully completed all the test phases, and to date, has already captured 4,000 images, corresponding, in its various operational configurations, to an overall area of approximately 6,900,000 sq km. In this four-month period, COSMO-SkyMed 1 has confirmed the high quality of its operational performance and capacity, providing detailed images of, for example, the sites of natural and environmental disasters, such as the Bolzano landslide, the wreck of the Russian oil tanker Volganeft-139 in the Black Sea and the recent cyclone in Bangladesh.

With the launch of the second satellite of the system today, COSMO-SkyMed’s capacity to capture and produce images of the Earth will be doubled to 900 a day.
The satellites will be able to provide daily mapping data on around 1.5 million sq km. Even more important is the improvement that will be obtained in the frequency with which it will be possible to observe the same site. With two satellites in operation, the time taken to revisit the same point on the globe will be reduced to less than 45 hours. When the entire constellation is in orbit and fully operational, this frequency will fall to 6/8 hours, opening the way to new applications and services relating to environmental monitoring, security and risk management.

COSMO-SkyMed is a programme created through an agreement between the Italian Space Agency ( ASI) and the Italian Defence Ministry, developed by Thales Alenia Space, prime contractor and manager of the entire system. Telespazio is responsible for building the entire ground segment and the integrated logistic and operations segment.

Through its subsidiary MARS Center (Microgravity Advanced Research and Support Center) Telespazio, a Finmeccanica/Thales company, is set to take part in scientific experiments to be conducted on board the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA’s Space Shuttle Atlantis will set off on mission STS-122 on 6 December 2007 at 10.30 pm Italian time. The main goal of the mission will be to install the Columbus module, built in Italy by Thales Alenia Space, on the International Space Station.
The Naples-based MARS Center, which is 100% controlled by Telespazio, was given the role of Facility Responsible Center (FRC) by the European Space Agency (ESA) for the Fluid Science Laboratory that will operate in the Columbus module. The laboratory will conduct experiments into the behaviour of fluids in microgravity. The experiments will be carried out both by the astronauts on board the ISS, and by MARS operators via commands sent the control room in Naples.

The MARS Center will be responsible for running the Fluid Science Laboratory during operations on board the ISS, and will be required to co-ordinate all the pre-mission activities, prepare the experiments and promote the scientific use of the facility itself to potential customers.The MARS Center will be responsible for running the Fluid Science Laboratory during operations on board the ISS, and will be required to co-ordinate all the pre-mission activities, prepare the experiments and promote the scientific use of the facility itself to potential customers.

The MARS Center will be actively involved in Geoflow, the first experiment to be carried out inside the Columbus module, which will simulate the geophysical characteristics of the Earth’s liquid core. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the phenomena generated by the earth’s magnetic field.