Italian Hub Industry

The keyword driving the interaction between Industry and the European Planetary Science community is the mutual interest in boosting innovation and developing new technologies (with also spin-in and –out as added values) at the benefit of the European citizens, while highly increasing the scientific knowledge driven by the missions.

Big space exploration programmes facilitate the European laboratories and scientific experimentations and they are essential for European industries. Being excluded from big programmes will have consequences on the European brain drain. If the EU is out of technological developments European industry and citizens will be forced to acquire or outsource them.

From an industrial perspective, the participation of Europe in space exploration is necessary to ensure its industry a level in the playing field with its competitors, to secure high-quality workplaces in Europe, and to create and sustain an efficient network of cooperation between large industry & SMEs and the scientific community.

An Italian successful case: the EXOMARS mission, aimed to technology validation and to search for signs of past and present life on Mars. It is led by Thales Alenia Space in Italy, under ESA funding, and in international cooperation.

Other examples: the ESA BepiColombo and Solar Orbiter missions. These missions also fruitfully involve the Italian industrial filiere, and they are endorsed and supported by the Italian Scientific Community and the Italian Space Agency.

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