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“We have the privilege, which together is also a burden, to operate in all application sectors” underlines Saccoccia; “although everyone has their own priorities, at least in terms of investment we have given greater weight to the exploration, space transport and observation of our planet. It was to be expected, if only because they are the driving sectors in terms of economic returns for our country. However, we have worked to have a good starting position also on new projects: this was a Ministerial which had a high bill on programs already in progress, but also very attractive innovations for our industry: I am thinking of the lander Argonauts, of which we became the first subscribers and which must be achieved by 2030, but also to the successful activation of Moonlightthe program for the development of lunar navigation and telecommunications systems, now predominantly Italian-English. Nonetheless we have granted subscriptions which will also allow smaller companies to have the possibility of brand contractors: I’m referring to navigation programs Leo Pnt And genesis, or ad Adrios, for there space debris removal el‘in-orbit servicing’.
Launchers: vexed question
One of the most awaited and important matches at the Ministerial it was played on pitchers. It is no coincidence that Space Transportation is among the segments of ESA with the greatest financial coverage (the second in absolute value): indicated as an enabling technology, without rockets space could not even be reached, other than to operate in it.
Paris could have either sanctioned definitively autonomous national strategies by the leaders of the segment, namely France and Italy – a choice that last December the French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, did not hesitate to define “suicide” – or rather reaffirm their solid cooperation. Cooperation, beyond the proclamations, is consolidated only on paper. And perhaps not even there, as suggested by the many perplexities aroused by the so-called “Quirinale Treaty”, signed in November 2021 by the French President Emmanuel Macron and the then Italian Prime Minister, Mario Draghi; a treaty deemed, according to critics, ratification more or less wicked of a disproportion in favor of France. Doubts that are anything but new, but by no means denied recently, on the contrary: only a month after the signing of the Treaty in Rome, the announcement of the Maya project of ArianeGroup, responsible for the creation of a reusable mini launcher for medium-light loads – we had talked about it with Morena Bernardini, vice president of Strategy and innovation of the French giant -, had seemed like a declaration of challenge to Vega C, the latest born in the Avio plants, moreover marketed by ArianeSpace (a company whose capital is 64% French). As Stefano Montefiori recalled in the «Corriere della Sera» on the eve of the Ministerial, according to sources never denied by the newspaper «La Tribune», it seems that the Draghi government had even sent ESA the request to remove Vega C from the control of ArianeSpace, above all after Italy’s lack of involvement in the Maia project. To complete the picture – and tell the complexity of the game played at the Ministerial – it should also be remembered that, at the same time as the Franco-Italian frictions, autonomous initiatives (about 200, mostly start-ups) of individual countries are proliferating in Europe for the development of mini and microlauncherspotential competitors on the market for small satellites, and, no less important, that Vega C’s first stage, the P120 C, will be the boosters solid-propellant rocket of the future (and late) European heavy rocket, the Ariane 6, in the dual configuration of two (Ariane 62) and four (Ariane 64). In other words, the concerns of those who see Ariane 6 bookings, not least for the launch of 18 satellites of the Amazon Kuiper constellation, do not seem unfounded. an arduous productive effort by the Colleferro company and, in any case, its subordination to the needs of the transalpine partner.
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