The Sentinel – 1C mission of the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA) has kicked off from the European base of Kourou in French Guiana. It was brought into orbit about 700 kilometers from Earth by the European carrier VEGA-C made by Avio.
The Italian Space Agency (ASI) finances both programs within ESA. Sentinel – 1C was mainly built in the Thales Alenia Space factories in Rome and is based, like the entire Sentinel series, on the Prisma platform developed for ASI. It will provide radar imagery of the Earth’s surface for a wide range of scientific services and applications to protect our planet.
The satellite is part of the Copernicus program. The satellite will be able to capture images regardless of weather conditions. Its multiple mission possibilities include the monitoring of ice masses and the Arctic environment, the landslide detectionthe forest mappingwater resources and soils.
The observations are also fundamental for the monitoring of natural disasters. ‘An important day for Italy and Europe. VEGA-C is back! Comments the president of the Italian Space Agency, Teodoro Valente. With the success of today’s launch, a lot of Italian technology is in orbit. In addition to the launcher, the Sentinel – 1C satellite of the Copernicus program, an important European network for Earth observation. A step forward for the recovery of a European capacity for autonomous access to space, which adds to the maiden flight last July of Ariane6, the heavy launcher. We are still very far from the capabilities of other non-European players: today encourages us to move as quickly as possible, to recover at least part of the gap that until a few months ago seemed completely unbridgeable and thus guarantee an in-house solution at least for strategic assets.
It is necessary to start – recalls Valente – from the awareness that the dynamics have changed: effectiveness, efficiency, rapid response times, cost containment and timely use of resources are strategic aspects that cannot be ignored. This requires adequate, no longer outdated, organizational and operational models. We need facts rather than purely speculative discussions that originate from outdated approaches, not suited to current times and future prospects.Congratulations to all the actors involved, to the specifically established ESA Task Force, to Avio and Thales Alenia Space Italia and to the entire ASI team who gave their fundamental contribution to achieving the objective achieved today. Italy is back in orbit.”
Urso: “Milestone for Italy”
“The launch of the Vega-C rocket is a fundamental milestone for Italy and for the whole of Europe: the success of a strategic investment that has been pursued with determination to guarantee a crucial capability, autonomous access to space”, said the Minister of Business and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso, commenting on the return to flight of the European carrier, launched yesterday from the Kourou base in French Guiana. “Tonight’s result represents a further step forward in Italian leadership in the space sector, thanks to the decisive contribution of our industry and in particular of Avio”, continues Urso.
“Italy confirms itself as one of the few countries in the world, and the only one in Europe together with France, to have independent access to space”. “A success”, underlines the minister, “which makes not only our country proud, but also the European scientific and industrial community, projecting Italy among the global protagonists of technological innovation and space exploration”.
Vega-C, built by the Avio company, with the support of Asi, as part of the European Space Agency programme, the Ministry explains, represents the evolution of Vega and was designed in order to obtain a greater load, optimizing production costs. The purpose of the launcher’s mission was to place the Sentinel-1C satellite into orbit, which is part of the European Copernicus Earth Observation program, built in the Italian factories of Thales Alenia Space.
Commenting on the launch, Minister Urso reiterated the importance of integrating space policies with defense policy to achieve Europe’s strategic autonomy, recalling that Italy is already the third largest contributor to ESA, after Germany. and France. The Space Economy is central to the policies of the Meloni government, which has already allocated 7.3 billion euros between now and 2026 in space projects while the Italian Space law which effectively opens up the “domain” is being discussed in Parliament to private individuals, with important incentives for SMEs and startups.