The contract was signed by Thales Alenia Space Italia as Agent of a Temporary Group of Companies, which also includes Telespazio, as Principal.
Participation in the COSMO-SkyMed program of the Polish Ministry of Defense with the role of "international defense partner” is an important accomplishment for the Italian space industry.
The contract, worth about 30 million Euros, is part of an agreement signed in 2012 by the Italian and Polish Ministries of Defense for cooperation in the Earth Observation sector. This agreement envisages Poland’s participation in the Second Generation COSMO-SkyMed Program with a significant percentage, as well as the building of the related user segment in Poland. In this context, Teledife acts as contractual agency on behalf of the Polish Ministry of Defense.
The contract covers the supply of the ground segment as a means of Polish access to the COSMO-SkyMed space system. P-DUGS will be able to request images, receive satellite data and generate and store products with different information content. The P-DUGS will be an integral part of the COSMO-SkyMed ground segment by virtue of the modularity and expandability features with which it was designed and built. The supply will occur in two phases. In the first phase, currently planned for the end of 2016 / beginning of 2017, access to the first generation COSMO-SkyMed satellites (CSK) will be guaranteed. With the second phase, planned between the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2019, access will be extended to the second generation satellites too.
The contract is the first concrete step in cooperation between the Italian and Polish defenses in the space sector and it will allow Telespazio and Thales Alenia Space to strengthen and consolidate their presence in Poland.
COSMO-SkyMed is one of the most innovative programs in the Earth observation field, financed by the Italian Space Agency, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Instruction, University and Scientific Research (MIUR). The first generation of this system is composed of a constellation of four identical satellites, equipped with radar sensors capable of operating under any atmospheric and visibility condition and with a very high revisit frequency. COSMO-SkyMed was conceived to meet civil (environmental monitoring, civil protection) and defense requirements.
COSMO-SkyMed was built entirely by the main industries in the Italian aerospace sector, including small and medium enterprises. Thales Alenia Space Italia is the prime contractor company responsible for the entire system, including the space and ground segments. Telespazio developed the civil and military ground segments, as well as the logistics and integrated management segment.