Airbus Defence & Space wants to consolidate its separate Airbus Constellations Satellites business. A French union (Union Nationale des Syndicats Autonomes (UNSA)) has described the move as industrial, economic and social nonsense. The Constellations business is the former Airbus OneWeb Satellite business formed as a joint venture in January 2016 between Airbus and Eutelsat OneWeb […]

Airbus, Leonardo and Thales have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create a leading European player in space. This new giant organisation was much expected by the industry and brings together Europe’s three largest space-related businesses. A statement from the trio said: “[This] new European space player aims to unite and enhance capabilities by combining […]

Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67 per cent) and Leonardo (33 per cent), has today unveiled its Space Smart Factory in Rome with a ceremony attended by Italian President Sergio Mattarella. The factory — one of Europe’s largest intelligent, digital, reconfigurable manufacturing facilities — is located at the Tecnopolo Tiburtino high-tech innovation […]

Capgemini, a specialist in business and technology transformation, Thales, a global player in advanced technologies for the Defence, Aerospace and Cyber & Digital sectors, and Thales Alenia Space, a joint company between Thales (67 per cent) and Leonardo (33 per cent), have been selected by the French Space Agency (CNES) as part of a government-backed […]

Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury has expressed optimism that current discussions with Thales and Leonardo would end in an agreement for the three businesses’ space divisions. He said he anticipated regulatory approval will take two years. Faury was speaking at a conference session at the Paris Air Show. He specifically addressed the proposed merger, saying the […]

The EU’s Defence and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius says he has no objection to mergers in the satellite and space production sector. Speaking on April 11th at the New Economy Forum’s Europa Forum in Brussels, he said he was in favour or supporting champions, although did not specifically mention the Airbus and Thales Alenia merger […]

Europe’s two giant aerospace companies are looking to merge their satellite-related businesses. Airbus Defence & Space and Thales Alenia Space are in ‘nonbinding’ talks about merging their two divisions. One third of Thales Alenia is owned by Italy’s Leonardo (and Leonardo also controls two-thirds of Telespazio). Airbus Chief Executive Guillaume Faury, speaking at the Airbus […]

Thales Alenia Space, the joint venture between Thales (67 per cent) and Leonardo (33 per cent), and Hispasat, Redeia’s satellite services operator, have announced the start of the development, manufacturing, verification, and validation phase of the QKD-GEO prototype, Spain’s quantum key distribution system from geostationary orbit. With a budget of €103.5 million, the QKD-GEO mission […]

The IRIS2 consortium, which is seeking to build a satellite mega-constellation on behalf of the European Commission, looks as if it is on the verge of collapse. French newspaper La Tribune says that due to risk assessment, Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Space, the subsidiaries of the two European aerospace giants, have sent a letter […]

The Satellite 2024 conference in Washington opened with its regular panel of satellite manufacturing executives. They admitted that demand for their geostationary craft had dropped. Chris Johnson, CEO at Maxar Space, agreed that demand for geostationary satellites had certainly declined but was far from dead: “It is evolving,” he told delegates, and estimated that the […]