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ALTEC celebrates 20 years in space

On April 5th, at the Thales Alenia Space facility in Turin, more than 500 people celebrated the first twenty years of ALTEC (Aerospace Logistics Technology Engineering Company). The company provides engineering and logistics services to support the International Space Station and is focused on future missions to explore the Moon and Mars. ALTEC is a private-public company, with Thales Alenia Space owning 63.75% of the capital and the Italian Space Agency holding the remaining 36.25%.

ALTEC's roots actually date back a few years when ICAEUS was established, the organization created to build the Multi-Functional Space Center at the initiative of Finmeccanica, the Piedmont Region, the City of Turin, and the local Chamber of Commerce.

The event saw the participation of local political authorities and administrators, for example Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, here not in his capacity as minister but as a former regional councillor with delegation to industry in the 1990s, when he had successfully promoted the region's aerospace activities.

The event featured a series of speeches by the heads of ALTEC, Thales Alenia Space, Telespazio, ASI, ESA, Leonardo Space Division, and the Polytechnic University of Turin. In addition to the inevitable self-congratulatory tones, some news emerged regarding forthcoming programmes. Following the recent setting up of an ALTEC branch in Cologne, the newly founded political body "Turin Aerospace City" has made available another large building at Corso Marche 79. The new expanse will, among other things, accommodate Control and Simulation Centres dedicated to the lunar, and later, Martian missions, as well as two new areas that will faithfully reproduce the terrain of the two celestial bodies, including their respective gravities. A museum area is also taking shape with some interesting artefacts representing historical moments of the Turin space industry such as the technological mock-up of the "Tethered" satellite and the wooden mock-up of the Crew Return Vehicle (CRV).

Meanwhile, Thales Alenia Space has signed a contract with ESA worth approximately €522 million, divided into tranches, for the continuation of the activities necessary to complete the ExoMars 2028 mission. The contract includes the construction of the Mars Entry, Descent and Landing Module (EDLM) and the reconfiguration of the vehicles such as the rover already built for the 2022 mission.

Among those present were astronauts Franco Malerba and Maurizio Cheli. Luca Parmitano was on video link from the NASA Space Center in Texas, but the audio was choppy ("Huston, there's a problem"). The author met with several former colleagues from earlier years who worked at Aeritalia Gruppo Sistemi Spaziali, then Alenia Spazio, Alcatel Alenia Space and finally Thales Alenia Space. Among them was Engineer Ernesto Vallerani, born in 1936, who was widely celebrated as the undisputed inspiration behind Italian space activity and is credited with designing and building the cylindrical pressurized module Spacelab, which remained in production for decades under various names and with different functions.

Let us hope that the next twenty years will see the future successes of ALTEC and the Italian space industry as a whole.

In the picture: The ALTEC Control Center at the beginning of its activity supporting the habitable modules of the International Space Station built in Turin. (Aeromedia)

(Aeromedia, April 2024)