Company Profile

Leonardo is a global high-tech Aerospace, Defence and Security company. Our consolidated industrial capabilities, together with our outstanding human capital and constant attention to innovation, have led us to become one of the top ten players in the world in Aerospace, Defence and Security, with revenues of € 12.2 billion, 85% of which deriving from international markets. Leonardo - headquartered in Italy - has a strong industrial presence in four domestic markets: Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States and Poland.

We are a partner of choice for governments, institutions and Armed Forces, as well as for private customers and entities. We deliver products and integrated solutions based on cutting-edge technologies with dual-use applications, to strengthen global security; protect people, the territories, infrastructures and information networks; contribute to the sustainable management of the environment, urban spaces and climate.

Air, land, sea, space and cyberspace: wherever defence and security are needed, our customers find in Leonardo effective solutions for their requirements in each of these areas through a complete and integrated offer in strategic sectors such as helicopters, aeronautics, unmanned systems, defence and security electronics, defence systems, and satellite systems and services.

Leonardo’s activities in Space date back to the mid-60s when Officine Galileo and FIAR participated to the first European programs promoted by the European Agencies ELDO (European Launcher Development Organisation) and ESRO (European Space Research Organisation). Since then, Leonardo has designed and produced qualified instrumentation for space activities implementing optical systems, star trackers, radio frequency devices, photovoltaic assembly, distribution and power control systems and robotic devices. At present, the products are used on-board the most important European space missions such as Rosetta, Exomars, Galileo, Copernicus, Cosmo-Skymed, METOP, MeteoSat Third Generation, Earth Explorer, within other ESA and NASA missions as well as for other international customers.

Headquarter

Piazza Monte Grappa 4, 00195 Rome (RM), Italy

Contact business

    Products | Services | Applications |Technologies

    E/O OPTICAL PAYLOADS

    • PRISMA hyperspectral payload (ASI)
    • Thermal-InfraRed payload for PLATiNO (ASI)
    • Sea Land and Surface Temperature Radiometer
    • Lightning Imager for MTG
    • Multi-viewing Multi-channel Multi-polarization Imager for MetOp-SG
    • FLEX on Earth Explorer 7

    PLANETARY EXPLORATION OPTICAL PAYLOADS

    • Visible InfraRed Thermal Imaging Spectrometer flown on Venus Express, Rosetta and DAWN
    • Spectrometer and Imager SIMBIO-SYS in flight on BepiColombo.
    • Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper - Camera and Spectrometer for the Juno mission to Jupiter
    • MAJIS and JANUS optical instruments for JUICE mission to Jupiter

    ATTITUDE SENSORS

    • Over 100 Automonous Star Trackers sold
    • SPACESTAR Star Tracker for Iridium NEXT constellation
    • Over 500 Earth Sensors delivered

    POWER CONDITIONING AND DISTRIBUTION

    • Electrical Power Systems & Equipment - up to 6 kW
    • Specific Application High Voltage Power Supply, EPC for TWTA and Converters for Electric Propulsion

    ATOMIC CLOCKS

    • Passive Hydrogen MASER (PHM), the master clock developed for Galileo Navigation Satellite System (more than 50 units delivered). The PHM is the most stable clock: frequency drift < 10-14.
    • Rb POP atomic clock: under dev. in ESA program GSTP - smaller, lighter and more stable than the PHM.

    PVA

    • PhotoVoltaic Assemblies for Scientific missions (Exomars, etc. ), LEO missions (ATVs, etc.), MEO/GEO missions (MTG, etc.)
    • Small satellite applications (AGILE, PRISMA, PROBA, DUBAISAT)
    • > 200,000 solar cells integrated on PVA and operating on orbit.

    GROUND SEGMENT

    • Complete solution, from Master/Anchor Station to set of Terminals for Military and Civil Applications:
    • Commercial and Military GEO Earth Terminals for telecom and LEO Earth Station for Earth Observation systems.
    • Satellite network Management Solution providing a complete FCAPS model services

    GALILEO PRS

    • Galileo PRS receivers: P3RS-2, the first operational “unclassified when keyed”; PR2C (Prototipo Ricevitore Dual-Constellation), combining navigation data acquired from Galileo and GPS constellations
    • Galileo Security Monitoring Center, part of the Galileo Ground Segment, for managing Galileo PRS users/user-access to the PRS service

    ON ORBIT PROPULSION

    • Cold Gas Micropropulsion subsystem: ON/OFF Propulsion  Micro thruster (1-500mN)
    • Linear control Micro-thruster (LISA Pathfinder, Microscope, Euclid) up to 2mN, Low thrust noise
    • Micropropulsion Components: Pressure Regulation, Propellant Flow Regulation/Gauging
    • Hollow Cathodes and Thermionic Neutralizers

    ROBOTICS AND DRILLING

    • Dextrous Robot System: 7 degrees-of-freedom manipulator for exploration and servicing
    • DELIAN: lightweight robotic arm
    • Rosetta SD2: drilling, sampling and sample distribution system (operated in 2014 on the comet CG 67P)
    • ExoMars Drill system (up to 2 meters depth) with embedded spectrometer and control system
    • Lunar driller for icy soil sampling
    • Bio-containment system for Mars Sample Return.

    RF EQUIPMENT

    • Solid State Power Amplifiers (SSPA)
    • UHF SSPA cover the bands from 200 to 1000MHz and deliver up to 200 W of output RF power
    • ATV, SkyNet V, Sicral missions
    • BIOMASS PAS (Power Amplifier System)
    • Vacuum Tube Power Amplifiers (pulsed and continuous TWT and Klystron)
    • Vacuum Tube Amplifiers are integrated with high voltage Electronic Power Conditioning units and cover the bands from 1 to 40 GHz (EarthCare, Cloud Profiling Radar)
    • Ka and EHF satellite transceivers providing high integrated solution for Vsat Terminals operating in enhanced High Frequencies 30..50GHz

    LASER transmitters

    • High Power Laser TxA for atmospheric LIDAR
    • ALADIN on board ADM-Aeolus since 2018 and to be flown on Earth-CARE, the two ESA “Earth Explorer” missions to the study Earth atmosphere.
    • Laser High Power Transmitter (TxA), with an optical output power of 120mJ @ 355 nm with very high frequency stability.
    • ALADIN is the most powerful laser source ever built in the UV band.

    SPACE COATINGS

    • Center of Excellence for Thin Film Coatings (optical and functional) for space, aeronautics, defense and industrial applications.
    • Coating systems: n.6 EB-PVD, n. 1 new Plasma and Ion Assisted Deposition (PIAD), n.5 Sputtering, n.3 PE-CVD.
    • Testing: Spectrophotometers and Climatic chambers. Clean room area class 1000 (class 100 in loading zones). 20k coated surfaces per year, over 70 qualified optical coatings.

    GaAs/GaN foundry

    • Development and Production of GaAs/ GaN devices (LNA, HPA, …) and T/R modules from L band to X band.
    • Microelectronics Technologies for RF Sub-systems
    • 900 m2 ISO 5 clean room: from wafer to packaged device processing.

    SPACE SOFTWARE

    • On-board s/w (OBDH for Cosmo-Skymed, SICRAL, PICS, Sentinel 1 and PRIMA; SAR payload s/w), Mission planning for remote sensing (CSK) and telecom (SICRAL, Athena-FIDUS).
    • Network management/monitoring and control (SICRAL, CSK)
    Video
    Our Missions & Programmes

    Prisma; Copernicus; Galileo GNSS; Rosetta; Lisa Pathfinder; James Webb Space Telescope; PLATiNO; MTG; Juno; GAIA; ExoMars; Mars Sample Return; METOP; SICRAL