Ibadan, 4 July 2024. – Officina Stellare S.p.A has won a new contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to supply a complete optical ground station, for lasercom applications. The contract is for 24 months and a total value of approximately €3.5 million, of which, approximately €2.4 million pertains to the OS Group. The project will see two development phases: the first relating to the design and development of the subsystems, the second to the prototyping and validation of the OGS, worth €1.5 million and €2 million respectively.
The C3PO project consists of an industrialized OGS (Optical Ground Station), destined for the European Space Operations Center, ESOC in Darmstadt. Officina Stellare will develop the OGS to meet market needs in both classical and quantum communication. In addition, the OGS will include an adaptive optics system for fiber optic signal coupling, a laser beacon system, a high-pointing performance telescope and an operation control and orchestration system.
Officina Stellare forms the industrial team of the C3PO optical ground station and is in charge of designing and manufacturing the adaptive optical system, with contributions from Dynamic Optics. Likewise, Work Microwave will take care of the part relating to the optical digital modem while ThinkQuantum will be responsible for quantum cryptography. Euroconsult is also participating in the development of this specific case study.
Speaking on the contract, Gino Bucciol, Co-founder and VP of Business Development of Officina Stellare, said, “We are enthusiastic about this important opportunity. It is a further step forward towards the creation of an all-European laser and quantum communication infrastructure and confirms the pioneering capabilities of Officina Stellare in this area, which will be of fundamental importance in guaranteeing secure communications from attacks in all sensitive fields, such as finance, critical infrastructures or military security.”
