The Italian Ministry of Defense’s OPTSAT-3000 satellite has been successfully launched by Arianespace from the Kourou European spaceport in the French Guyana, with a VEGA European launcher, produced by AVIO.
The whole system is supplied by Leonardo through Telespazio (Leonardo 67%, Thales 33%). As prime contractor, Telespazio leads an international group of companies including, among others, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which built the satellite within an international co-operation agreement between Italy and Israel as well as OHB Italia, responsible for the launch services.
Alessandro Profumo, CEO of Leonardo, commented: “With the launch of OPTSAT-3000, Italy has acquired an asset capable of significantly improving the country’s defense and protection capabilities. We are proud to have contributed to the achievement of this important target, bringing to bear our outstanding capabilities and technologies in a leadership role on a strategic national security programme. With OPTSAT-3000, Leonardo continues to be a major player in international space projects.”
OPTSAT-3000 consists of a satellite in a sun-synchronous Low Earth Orbit (LEO) orbit and of a Ground Segment for in-orbit control and for data acquisition and processing. OPTSAT-3000 will provide high-resolution images of any part of the globe, providing Italy with an autonomous national capability of Earth observation from space with a high-resolution optical sensor.
OPTSAT-3000 will jointly operate with the second-generation COSMO-SkyMed system of radar satellites – which has also been developed by Italian industry, with Leonardo and its joint venture partners, Thales Alenia Space (Thales 67%, Leonardo 33%) and Telespazio – integrating optical and radar data to provide the Italian Ministry of Defense with information characterized by extreme accuracy, resolution and completeness and with state-of-the-art analysis and operational tools.