- The Spanish secure communications satellite SpainSat NG II, successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, will provide services to the Armed Forces and international organizations such as the European Commission and NATO, as well as to the governments of allied countries.
- Thales Alenia Space, together with Airbus Defence and Space, has led the development and construction of the SpainSat NG satellites.
- The company, involved in different areas of the project, has been responsible for the integration of the Communication Module for both satellites along with Airbus in a dedicated clean room built for this purpose at its Tres Cantos facilities in Madrid, making it the largest satellite system ever assembled in Spain to date.
Madrid – The secure communications satellite SpainSat NG II has successfully been launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The SPAINSAT NG system will ensure secure communications for the Spanish Armed Forces and allied countries for decades to come.
SPAINSAT NG, a program led, owned and operated by Hisdesat Servicios Estratégicos S.A., is considered to be the most ambitious space project in Spain’s history, both due to its performance and the outstanding involvement of the national industry. The SpainSat NG satellites are among the most advanced telecommunications birds in the world. They operate from geostationary orbit in X, military Ka and UHF frequency bands, used for high throughput secure communications, enabling to provide dual, secure and resilient services to the Spanish Armed Forces, as well as to international organizations such as the European Commission, NATO, and allied countries.
Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), together with Airbus Defence and Space, has led the execution and construction of the satellites. In Spain, the company has been responsible for the UHF and military Ka-band payloads and, together with Airbus, for the integration of the communication Modules, which embark the communication payloads and forms the core of their advanced technological capabilities.
Ismael López, CEO of Thales Alenia Space in Spain, said: “This launch marks the culmination of a transformative project for the Spanish space industry. We thank Hisdesat and the Ministry of Defense for the trust placed in our company to lead, for the first time in Spain, the development of the communications payloads for the SPAINSAT NG geostationary satellites. For our teams in Madrid, successfully overcoming a challenge of this magnitude places the national space industry on a higher level.”
State-of-the-art satellite technology in Madrid
To carry out this mission, the company built a satellite assembly and integration clean room at its Tres Cantos site in Madrid, inaugurated in 2021, and specifically designed to integrate the communication modules of both satellites. These advanced and cutting-edge facilities make it possible to integrate and test large-scale, highly complex satellite systems, capabilities that until now were only within the reach of a few space powers worldwide.
For the first time in Spain, these facilities have enabled the integration of a module weighting more than 2 tons and measuring 6 meters in height, fully equipped with cutting-edge space communications technology and comprising hundreds of sophisticated electronic units.
Additionally, Thales Alenia Space has designed and manufactured in Spain, France, Italy, and Belgium over 200 electronic and radiofrequency units that are an integral part of the communications payloads and the satellite’s telecommand and telemetry system. Among them are the UHF processor, the core of the UHF payload; the Digital Transparent Processor (DTP) that interconnects the payloads in the X and military Ka bands; and the Hilink unit, responsible for providing a high-speed service link that will facilitate a quick reconfiguration of the payloads.
