#T-TeC 2022

On 24 January 2023, during the 15th European Space Conference in Brussels, the winners of the fourth edition of the #T-TeC - Telespazio Technology Contest, the Telespazio and Leonardo Open Innovation contest open to students and university researchers in STEM subjects from all over the world, were awarded.

The winners

For the 2022 edition, the #T-TeC turned into a real start-up incubator. The first prize - won by a team from the Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) and the Observatoire de Paris (France) - offered access to an acceleration pathway at Leonardo's Business Innovation Factory (BIF), in addition to EUR 10,000 in cash.

The second prize was awarded to an international team composed of students from Imperial College (UK), the Max Planck Institute (Germany), ETH Zurich (Switzerland), Stanford University (USA) and the University of Oxford (UK), which, in addition to EUR 6,000 in cash, will have the opportunity to start the project on a pre-incubation path by the I3P of the Politecnico di Torino, which will enable the team to prepare itself in the best possible way for a place in the European Space Agency's incubation path at the Business Incubator Centre in Turin (ESA BIC Turin).

The third prize, worth EUR 4,000, was awarded to a team from the Politecnico di Milano, with the SunCubes project, while team from Politecnico di Torino received with "Constellation architecture in lunar orbit for energy wireless transmission on the Moon" the Test-it Award - one of the novelties of this edition - aimed at developing a proof of concept of the project presented.

Two special mentions went to students from the Krakow University of Science and Technology (Poland), with the μPURA project, and to an international team from ETH Zurich (Switzerland), Istituto Europeo di Design (Italy) and two Argentinean universities, the Universidad Nacional de la Plata and Universidad Argentina de la Empresa, with "Low-cost infrastructure deployment services to support the space resource utilisation value chain".

The awards were presented by Leonardo's Space Activities Coordinator and Telespazio CEO, Luigi Pasquali, Leonardo's Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Franco Ongaro, and Telespazio's Head of Innovation and Technology Governance, Marco Brancati, as well as Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti!

1st Place - SAFE EUR 10,000 + Acceleration pathway to develop the project through Leonardo's Business Innovation Factory (BIF)

Team: Benedetta Margrethe Cattani; Gaia Roncalli; Mireia Leon Dasi; Enrique Fernandez-Martin

From: Delft University of Technology (Nederlands) and Observatoire de Paris (France)

More than 30000 man-made objects orbit the Earth, and the probability of their collision with operational satellites continues to increase over time, especially with the advent of megaconstellations composed of thousands of satellites. Managing close encounters in space and avoiding collisions is becoming increasingly urgent. System to Avoid Fatal Events (SAFE) is an innovative software package that can be easily integrated into any ground station. It evaluates the probability of collision between orbiting objects and suggests optimal maneuvers to minimize fuel consumption and service downtime. The main innovation is the collision probability estimation algorithm by which SAFE achieves results that are up to 70 percent more accurate and 10 times faster than the state of the art.
2nd Place - SPAICE EUR 6,000 + Pre-incubation pathway organised by I3P, the incubator of Politecnico di Torino

Team: Matteo Cuccorese, Nicholas Argenziano, Guillem Garrofé, Carlota Parés, Ronald Clark

From: Imperial College (UK), Max Planck Institute (Germany), ETH Zurich (Switzerland), Stanford University (USA); University of Oxford (UK)

In-Orbit Servicing is of utmost importance in aerospace, as it is crucial for tasks such as docking, refueling, repairing, upgrading, maintaining space assets, and removing orbital debris. Although several manned in-orbit servicing missions have been carried out, current technology is not yet able to provide a fully autonomous, unmanned solution for proximity tasks due to the scarcity of reliable automated solutions. For this purpose, it is indeed crucial to accurately determine the target's position and trajectory. SPAICE aims to support ground-based control by exploiting the prospects offered by artificial intelligence. The solution is based on the improvement of photorealism, that is, the transformation of synthetic images of space assets to be acted upon into a realistic-looking version. Through the use of artificial intelligence, SPAICE is able to provide accurate images, which are essential during in-orbit operations for which the docking of a moving object is required.
3rd Prize - SUNCUBES EUR 4,000

Team: Alberto Chiozzi, Tommaso Aresi, Ester Sommariva, Alessandro de Luca, Federico Ognibene, Annachiara Ippolito

From: Politecnico di Milano (Italy)

In today's space economy, solar panels and batteries represent a huge part of the cost and weight of satellites. SunCubes aims to create an alternative to the current power supply system so that satellite manufacturers can maximize their return on investment. The solution is to have a network of standard satellites with the main purpose of producing and storing energy. The energy will be transferred to the recipient satellites through the use of laser technology. This system will not only be a great advantage in terms of cost savings, but also increase mission flexibility, leading to reduced component and launch costs and at the same time a longer service life
Test-it Award - ORIS Proof of concept financed by Leonardo with the technical collaboration of Telespazio

Team: Francesco Lopez; Anna Mauro; Giuseppe Monteleone; Domenico Edoardo Sfasciamuro; Andrea Villa

From: Politecnico di Torino (Italy)

Lunar economy is one of the most promising realities in the space sector. Upcoming human missions to the lunar surface will target stable settlements, to which telecommunication and navigation services will be indispensable. The project aims to establish an in-orbit lunar infrastructure for wireless power (ORIS) transmission to the lunar surface through a constellation of satellites around the Moon. The constellation will be in icy or near-freezing orbits at low altitude around the Moon and will send power to the lunar surface for lunar bases, exploration and scientific devices. The system is based on a few key technologies: high-power lasers, adaptive optics and photovoltaic receivers.

Photo gallery

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First Place Gaia Roncalli and Benedetta Margrethe Cattani from Delft University of Technology, representing the first-place team together with Luigi Pasquali, CEO of Telespazio, Franco Ongaro, CTIO of Leonardo, Marco Brancati, CTIO of Telespazio and Italian ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti

Second Place Matteo Cuccorese from Imperial College London, Nicholas Argenziano from ETH Zurich and Guillerm Garrofè from the Max Planck Institute, representatives of the second-place team, together with Luigi Pasquali, CEO of Telespazio, Franco Ongaro, CTIO of Leonardo, Marco Brancati, CTIO of Telespazio and Italian ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.

Third Place Ester Sommariva and Alberto Chiozzi from tthe Milan Polytechnic, representatives of the third-ranked team, together with Luigi Pasquali, CEO of Telespazio, Franco Ongaro, CTIO of Leonardo, Marco Brancati, CTIO of Telespazio and Italian ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.

Test-It Award Andrea Villa and Anna Mauro from the Turin Polytechnic, representatives of the team that won the Test-It Award together with Luigi Pasquali, CEO of Telespazio, Franco Ongaro, CTIO of Leonardo, Marco Brancati, CTIO of Telespazio and Italian ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.

Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), Josef Aschbacher

President of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), Giorgio Saccoccia.

The Italian ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti