Iris in Orbit: The Revolution of Made in Italy Smallsats

With the first batch of Argotec satellites launched by SpaceX on June 24, Italy has begun building its own Earth monitoring constellation. Small, cost-effective and quick to assemble and launch, these satellites embody the paradigm of New Space, and Italian companies are playing a key role.

BY EMILIO COZZI e MATTEO MARINI

Less than three years to build a satellite constellation. It can be done.

On April 21, 2021, the then Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council with responsibility for Space and Aerospace Policy, Bruno Tabacci, during a hearing before the Productive Activities Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, said: “The space sector aims to be one of the most potent drivers with the greatest potential and impact for the recovery and growth of our country in the short and medium term. On this basis, we have proposed to include in the PNRR activities related to satellite telecommunications, Earth observation, satellite navigation, the so-called Space Factory 4.0, access to space, the in-orbit economy, and downstream applications and services.”

May 2022: broadcasting from the International Space Station, Samantha Cristoforetti announces the name, selected through a student competition, to baptize the new Italian constellation for Earth observation. It will be called Iride.

June 2022: Italy entrusts the European Space Agency (ESA) with €1.3 billion to coordinate the development and construction of the first national infrastructure, the largest of its kind. In the following December, the first contracts are signed with Argotec and OHB Italia. Although managed by ESA, the PNRR funds are intended to generate orders for the national industrial ecosystem.

January 2025: Argotec, the company responsible for building 25 of Iride’s satellites, launches the inaugural apparatus, Pathfinder, the precursor to what culminates in June 2025, on the 24th, when at the head of a Falcon 9 on the Transporter-14 mission, seven Earth observation satellites built by the Turin-based company are placed into orbit. Iride becomes a constellation. They join the one launched a few months earlier, forming the first batch of what is destined to become a “constellation of constellations,” which will total about sixty satellites built by four different companies.

Small, agile, and fast

Argotec’s satellites are based on a predefined modular platform, Hawk, and are equipped with telescopes for multispectral optical observation. Thales Alenia Space Italia will build theirs with synthetic aperture radar, valuable for monitoring ground movements (landslides, soil shifts) and infrastructures such as bridges and roads, and in emergencies, to provide maps of flooded areas and collapsed roads. OHB Italia will contribute twelve satellites for multispectral observation, and finally, Sitael will integrate the constellation with four hyperspectral satellites (with hundreds of color bands) from the Platino program (another program by the Italian Space Agency, featuring smallsats weighing up to 300 kilograms).

Iride will thus become the first Italian institutional constellation for Earth observation with this architecture and distinctive features. Small satellites produced in series, on “standard” platforms that can host different payloads, like Argotec’s Hawk, to which various instruments can be applied: telescopes, communication antennas, cameras for observing the Earth or the sky, sensors for space weather. Small, easy to produce in large numbers (see, for example, Sitael’s new satellite platform, Empyreum), and compatible with off the shelf instruments, that is, already available on the market.

A great opportunity

This is just the first step: to meet the commitments made to Europe, Iride must be completed by 2026. This timeline has necessarily required a fast approach and quick solutions.
This is the hallmark that summarizes much of the new space sector: designing, building, and placing satellites into orbit quickly and at contained costs, leveraging the know-how of Italian companies. These companies, in a virtuous cycle, refine and implement their processes and technologies. In this sense, and with a forward-looking approach, Iride is driving innovation.

This is a crucial and strategic push for Italy, as it will give the country a constellation to monitor and manage its territory, infrastructure, security, and borders. For the companies involved, and many of them are non-manufacturing, it will be a catalyst to become even more competitive in a market where these satellites represent both the present and the future. This is the great merit of Iride and those who conceived its design.

Missed opportunities too

For those attentive to details, it won’t have gone unnoticed that the Iride constellation was launched by SpaceX from the Vandenberg base in California. Looking closely, this is a flaw that Europe and Italy should not be able to afford: having others launch our space assets. This has already been widely discussed: we are coming out of less than a year of launcher crisis and still lack lightweight, ready-to-use means, with the timing that the new agility of space programs demands.

Another detail: Tabacci, in that hearing, also said: “Also within the European framework, the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, has initiated intense work regarding the space sector, proposing the creation of a satellite constellation for communications that guarantees European autonomy in this field, and a kind of European alliance for space access that could bring a significant change to the current landscape of the European space industry.” Four years later, we are still wondering whether to rely on Elon Musk’s infrastructures. The question is legitimate: could it have been done?