Space, Asi signs an agreement for the launch of the first two Platinum minisatellites

Platinum mission towards launch with the first two satellites Platinum-1 and Platinum-2 which will be put into orbit between the end of 2022 and the middle of 2024. ASI announces that the contract for launch services signed – on behalf of the ‘Italian Space Agency – from the grouping of companies RTI with Arianepace provides for the use of the European carrier with an Italian majority Vega. The ASI platform for Platinum minisatellites was designed by the grouping of companies (RTI) made up of the agent Sitael, Thales Alenia Space, Leonardo, and Airbus Defense and Space and was designed to support a wide range of missions in different operational scenarios. in the fields of Earth observation, telecommunications and scientific missions. Both satellites will be launched from Kourou in French Guiana, thanks to the European Vega launcher built in the Italian plants of Colleferro, near Rome, by the Italian company Avio. The platform will guarantee a reduction in development and operating costs, in an extremely competitive market moment and will favor the strategic positioning of our industrial sector in a sector that sees the emergence of new systems such as satellite megaconstellations. The Platino-1 mission, equipped with an innovative synthetic aperture radar (SAR) in X-band, will be able to operate both in passive and active mode, guaranteeing performances never before obtained in the mini SAR sector, while opening the way. to new interoperational scenarios between different missions such as bistatic applications. Platino-2, equipped with an infrared thermal sensor (Tir), will be operational in the context of and in support of territorial control and emergency management. The images produced will be used for monitoring tests of water, pollutants, crops and vegetation, energy consumption in urban areas and fire monitoring. The ASI underlines that Platino-2 will be one of the first national missions to observe the Earth in the thermal channel from an orbit of less than 400 kilometers, significantly improving the resolution of the images collected.