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 that will be put into orbit between late 2022 and mid-2024. ASI announces that the contract for launch services signed – on behalf of the Italian Space Agency – by 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) constituted by 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 science missions. Both satellites will be launched from Kourou in French Guiana, thanks to the European Vega launcher made 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 Platinum-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 interoperable 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 the control of the territory and in the management of emergencies. 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 Platinum-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.