The Thales Alenia Space smart factory was inaugurated in Rome, in the Tiburtino Tecnopolo. Present at the ceremony were the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, the Minister of Business and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso and the CEO of Leonardo Roberto Cingolani.
The project involves 100 million euros of investments and the manufacturing, when fully operational, of approximately 100 satellites per year. The smart-factory was born from an Italian-French joint venture which also involved Leonardo itself. This is how the Italian space supply chain expands, participating in a continuously growing market.
The satellite smart factory inaugurated in Rome
The Rome plant was built thanks to a combination of public and private investments. In addition to Thales, a French giant specialized in aerospace electronics, and Leonardo, the Italian Space Agency and above all the European Union are also participating, with funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). In total, 100 million euros.
At full capacity, the factory is expected to produce about 100 satellites per year, an average of 10 per week. The market in which the two companies have decided to position themselves is increasingly growing. According to Leonardo’s CEO, Roberto Cingolani, over 10 thousand satellites will be launched in the coming years.
Leonardo’s role in the space sector
On the occasion of the inauguration of the smart-factory in Rome, Cingolani also spoke about Leonardo’s ambitions in the aerospace market. In particular in the satellite sector, the company is working on a partnership that involves, in addition to Thales, also the Franco-German giant Airbus, one of the largest commercial aircraft manufacturers in the world.
The project was renamed Bromo and Leonardo’s CEO was optimistic about the timing. It could be a matter of “days or weeks” to get to the preliminary signature. “I have already made a report to the Board of Directors and as soon as we have a clear idea between three of us, we will convene an extraordinary board” declared Cingolani.
Even if the three companies at the center of this project seem willing to collaborate, the CEO himself recalled that it is not a simple agreement between private individuals. The entities involved operate in a context of national security and therefore the approval of the two governments, French and Italian, will also be necessary at a time when relations between the executives are not cordial.
The Italian space supply chain
The smart factory in Rome is part of a highly developed supply chain in Italy, the space one. Space technologies alone are worth 2.9 billion euros in turnover in our country and are part of a continuously growing sector, the aerospace one, which in 2023 reached 18 billion euros in turnover.
The president of Leonardo Stefano Pontecorvo explained the role of the Rome smart-factory within this supply chain:
It will be a system infrastructure available to the entire space sector supply chain and in total connection with the SMEs in the sector. Thanks to this project, Italy will become one of the few countries in the world to boast a presence across the entire space production chain.
