Sitael and the “realm” of smallsats. Italian excellence for large constellations

The Apulian company has announced a new small satellite platform. Together with Thales Alenia Space, D-Orbit, and Argotec, Italian know-how is growing in one of the most strategic sectors.

BY EMILIO COZZI

Two facts, apparently distant in both space and subject, should be noted first. The first: during the sensational exchange of accusations between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, in response to the president’s threat to cancel already signed contracts, Musk announced his intention to retire the Dragon spacecraft, the only ones available to the United States for transporting crews to and from the International Space Station.

The second fact is a piece of news from just a few weeks ago: Sitael, the largest Italian space company with entirely private capital (part of the Angel Group, formerly known as Angelo Investments), unveiled a new satellite platform. In less technical terms, a “model” of satellite designed to host payloads for a wide variety of uses.

It is a modular architecture, conceived to be assembled more quickly. It’s called Empyreum and was presented at SmallSat Europe in Amsterdam at the end of May. This is no coincidence, as Empyreum is a project for small satellites, where “small” means masses between 150 and 250 kilograms. These are not cubesats, but neither are they one-ton-plus vehicles, which typically cost hundreds of millions of euros and are custom-designed for a specific mission or service (such as geostationary satellites for weather or broadcasting).

Low orbit, the strategic space

There are several aspects that make this announcement significant: Sitael will equip the new satellites with an electric propulsion system, Spark, proprietary and with great maneuvering capabilities.

Satellites of this size are usually employed where the atmosphere, though rarefied, still exerts its influence and corrective maneuvers are required, sometimes with high acceleration, for example in very low Earth orbit (Vleo).

Another aspect, not exactly a minor detail, is that, as stated by Sitael’s Ceo, Chiara Pertosa, “Empyreum is ready to be deployed in constellations. Each satellite is pre-integrated with inter-satellite optical links, which we consider essential for the next-generation distributed architecture.”

We live in a historical period where the “density of traffic,” even in space, is crucial. Particularly because the most “useful” orbits are the low ones, which allow for higher resolution, being closer to the ground (in the case of Earth observation missions), and lower latency, since the signal has to cover a shorter distance compared to higher orbits (in the case of communications).

They are useful and, from a military and geopolitical standpoint, strategic.

The orbits closest to the Earth’s surface are also the portion of space where any satellite, due to orbital mechanics, cannot remain “hovering” above a point or region but must travel at very high speed. This is why each device can provide service over a specific area or country for only a handful of minutes per orbit.

To offer continuous and resilient services, therefore, many satellites are needed. The most famous example is Starlink, which ensures internet connectivity potentially worldwide, supported by a fleet of over 7,500 operational devices.

The link between satellites, like those that Empyreum satellites will have, the second generation of Galileo, and already equipped on Starlink, allows sending commands or receiving information to and from devices outside the line of “sight,” using those currently reachable as a “bridge” to communicate even on the other side of the world without the need for ground antennas.

This is how Iride and Platino are made

There is one final aspect of a promising equation: last March, in Mola di Bari, Sitael inaugurated the new Factory 4.0, a project supported by Pnrr funds and a public-private partnership with the Italian Space Agency (Asi). This state-of-the-art facility features digital technologies, a qualification and testing plant, a one-thousand-square-meter clean room, and the capability to verify performance in a simulated environment (the digital twin).

It was from this facility that Platino-1 emerged, the first satellite to use the Platino platform, a program funded by Asi but sharing common features with Empyreum. It is a platform for satellites that will each carry different payloads depending on the mission type. The first will be equipped with a synthetic aperture radar; Platino-2, in collaboration with Nasa, will carry the American multispectral instrument Maia to orbit, designed for detecting atmospheric pollutants.

Sitael has also signed four contracts for as many Platino missions, which will be part of the Italian Earth observation constellation Iride (also funded by the Pnrr).

These satellites will be built at the Mola di Bari facility and will carry next-generation hyperspectral optical instruments manufactured by Leonardo at their Campi Bisenzio plant near Florence. These are not merely experimental satellites; the goal of the Pnrr funding is to grow and strengthen a space industry that, in the medium term, can provide Italy with space infrastructure autonomy, a capability that both our country and Europe currently lack.

Italian and European constellations

Although they are two distinct projects, the Platino platform is of a similar class to Empyreum (around 350 kilograms), while the other satellites will have different sizes and masses depending on the mission type and manufacturer. In any case, they remain within the same “realm,” that of smallsats, built by companies with excellent capabilities and know-how, which are gearing up to produce quickly on increasingly fast assembly lines. Besides Sitael, contractors in the Iride program include Thales Alenia Space Italy, Argotec, D-Orbit, and OHB Italy.

The dispute between Musk and Trump demonstrated how delicate and fragile the balance is when a single player dominates the landscape. And in the months when the opportunity to entrust Starlink with our country’s strategic communications is being debated, and work is starting on the future European constellation Iris2, Italy’s potential in this sector proves stronger than ever.

It should also be noted that a national communication constellation has been the subject of a preliminary feasibility study by Asi just in recent months.

An autonomy not only national but European could be within reach in a short time, if even a single country, such as Italy, were to decide to “go it alone.” Provided, it must be emphasized, that everything is interoperable and in synergy with the current Franco-British constellation OneWeb by Eutelsat, and with the future Iris2.