ESSP: 216 mE to Telespazio to provide services for the EGNOS programme until 2021

Telespazio won a contract worth EUR 216 million with the European Satellite Service Provider (ESSP) as part of the EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service) satellite navigation programme.

The eight-year contract was signed today in Toulouse by Telespazio CEO Luigi Pasquali and ESSP President Dirk Werquin.

Telespazio was chosen as ESSP’s main subcontractor at the head of an industrial partnership that includes Thales Alenia Space, a Thales/Finmeccanica company, as main partner.

Specifically, Telespazio will be responsible for maintenance activities and network services for the telecommunications between the EGNOS sites located in Europe. The company will also support ESSP in developing EGNOS services in various fields of activity (road, rail, sea transport) in the public and private sector. Telespazio will also manage the programme’s logistical services from the Fucino Space Centre. To ensure these activities are closely coordinated, Telespazio will station two of its teams at the ESSP sites in Toulouse (France) and Torrejon (Spain).

Thanks to twenty years of experience in the sector, Thales Alenia Space is Telespazio’s main partner in the program. In the framework of the contract it will focus on EGNOS maintenance, along with support services, such as obsolescence management and implementation of minor EGNOS upgrades.

Luigi Pasquali, CEO of Telespazio, commented: “Our victory in this important international tender confirms and strengthens Telespazio’s role as one of the world’s main operators of satellite infrastructure, and paves the way for a more consolidated leadership in the provision of services, with the development of new EGNOS/Galileo-based applications. The success is also the result of a profitable co-operation within the Space Alliance set up by Finmeccanica and Thales, and further consolidates the partnership between its two members, Telespazio and Thales Alenia Space”.

Finmeccanica owns 67 percent of Telespazio and its French partner holds the remainder.