News

SELEX Galileo has acquired the US company Lasertel, a key supplier of laser diodes. The acquisition will strengthen SELEX Galileo's position in the US laser market and offer growth opportunities both with SELEX Galileo and through DRS Technologies. Lasertel will continue to act as a merchant supplier of laser diodes in the defence sector, and will continue to serve graphics, medical and industrial markets.

SELEX Galileo, of Finmeccanica, and King Abdullah Design and Development Bureau (KADDB) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the in country development of joint UAV technologies and electro-optic sensors to equip the Jordan special operations forces.

SELEX Galileo of Finmeccanica has been awarded a 26 million Euro contract for the supply of SM-1S radar seekers for a Middle East customer. The award comes as part of an MBDA contract for the provision of MARTE MK2/N anti ship missiles. SELEX Galileo's SM-1S seekers are the latest generation of the Company's Active RF anti-ship seeker family. Over 1000 units have been developed and produced, and these have gone on to perform successfully in more than 120 launch campaigns.

SELEX Galileo, of Finmeccanica, is pleased to announce the presentation of the Company's new VigilX system at the Dubai Air Show 15-20th November 2009. The system allows pilots and flight crew to "see through" the hull of their aircraft by fusing onboard sensor data to generate a 360° panoramic integrated picture around the aircraft.

SELEX Galileo, of Finmeccanica, and its partners have been awarded a five and a half year contract worth in excess of £350m by BAE Systems for 'Captor' Radar and 'Praetorian' Defence Aids Systems on behalf of Eurofighter GmbH. The Contract will see SELEX Galileo provide a full support service on the Eurofighter Typhoon fleets for the Air Forces in UK, Germany, Spain and Italy.

SELEX Galileo of Finmeccanica has been awarded a contract for the supply of 21Titan 385ES-HD airborne turrets for the UK MoD's Chinook fleet SH and SF FLIR capability. The contract also provisions for the upgrade of 4 existing Chinook Titan 385ES turrets to the HD configuration. The total contract value is in excess of £10 million and the turrets will be delivered between February 2010 and July 2011.

SELEX Galileo, part of the Finmeccanica Group, is a key, reliable partner of the United Arab Emirates, and is taking part in a number of challenging initiatives that are currently ongoing or under development in the Gulf region. At the 2009 Dubai Airshow (from 15 to 19 November), SELEX Galileo will be demonstrating a number
of its core technologies and products.

SELEX Galileo, a Finmeccanica company, and its partner companies have been awarded a five-year contract worth more than GBP 350 million by BAE Systems for support services for Captor radar and Praetorian "Defense Aids Systems" for the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft currently in service with the air forces of the four partner countries: Germany, Italy, the UK and Spain.

SELEX Galileo welcomes the formal signing of the M-346 programme contract that will kick off the production and deliveries of the 15 trainer aircraft to the Aeronautica Militare Italiana (Italian Air Force). The Company produces the Mission Core System (MCS) for the trainer, which has been highly rated by pilots and has demonstrated high-performance in flight trials.

Kairat Kelimbetov, the Chairman of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Samruk-Kazyna, and Pier Francesco Guarguaglini, Chairman and CEO of Finmeccanica, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to conclude industrial co-operation agreements with Finmeccanica Group companies in the rail, electro-optics and helicopter sectors.

Proba-2, launched last night from northern Russia, is a follow-on to the highly successful Proba-1 satellite launched in 2001. It will demonstrate 17 advanced satellite technologies including SELEX Galileo's newly developed star tracker.
 
Based on the HAS APS detector, the AA-STR star tracker has been designed to reduce cost, mass and size compared to the CCD based star tracker, and significantly increase tolerance to harsh radiation environments.

As a member of the NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) programme industrial team, SELEX Galileo of Finmeccanica welcomes the finalisation of the Programme Memorandum of Understanding by the 15 participating nations.
 
The NATO AGS system will provide the Alliance with an airborne ground surveillance core capability designed to meet its Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance requirements for the 21st Century.

SELEX Galileo, of Finmeccanica, will provide the Defensive Aids Suite (DAS) as part of the £300
million upgrade programme for 28 of the Royal Air Force's fleet of Puma Mk1 helicopters.

The upgrade, based on technology in the combat proven HIDAS system, will include a separate DAS
controller and multi-function colour display which will warn crews of threats, increase situational
awareness and will have the ability to record mission data for post-flight analysis.

On 8 and October, Luxembourg will play host to a conference entitled "From Galileo to GALILEO: understanding the universe to improve life on earth". The initiative, promoted by the Italian embassy in Luxembourg, the Luxembourg education and research ministry and ASI, the Italian Space Agency, aims to stimulate debate on the contribution that the space industries of the two countries can make to the sector at European and global level.
 
The first day's work, at the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce, will be dedicated to the themes of telecommunications and earth observation, with the help of Finmeccanica companies operating in the space sector. These companies bear witness to the long tradition of excellence that Italy has developed in this field, from the creation of the country's first satellites to the GALILEO European satellite navigation programme. Speakers at the event will include Giorgio Zappa, Chief Operating Officer of Finmeccanica, Giuseppe Veredice, CEO of Telespazio, Luigi Pasquali, CEO of Thales Alenia Space and Fabrizio Giulianini, deputy CEO of SELEX Galileo.
 
The University of Luxembourg will be the venue on the second day, which will focus on how space sector technology can be applied to biomedicine and biotechnology, and how it can be used to prevent and manage environmental emergencies.

The LCROSS Centaur module and Spacecraft impacted the Moon at approximately 11:30 UTC, Friday October the 9th as planned. The successful impact means that LCROSS science team can now begin to search for ice and produce detailed topographical maps of the lunar surface.
 
SELEX Galileo's A-STR attitude control sensors provided LCROSS with the correct orientation throughout its journey. The sensors also guided the final stages of the LCROSS 'impacter' module?s collision course, 'centering' the impact area of the Moon's surface.
 
The LRO spacecraft, currently orbiting around the moon, collected additional scientific data during the LCROSS descent and impact. SELEX Galileo has two A-STR on board LRO, providing the spacecraft with very accurate orientation during orbits.

In a collaborative mission between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), scientists have discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the moon.
 
Instruments aboard three separate spacecraft revealed water molecules in amounts that are greater than predicted. The findings were published in the recent edition of the journal Science.
 
The results were further confirmed by data from the Spectrometer VIMS, which features an important contribution from SELEX Galileo, installed on NASA's Cassini programme.
 
VIMS primary scientific objective is to provide two dimensional, multi-spectral high resolution images for detailed study of the composition and structure of Saturn's ring system, dark materials and atmospheric composition. VIMS will aid in the understanding of the origin and evolution of the rings and of the atmosphere of Saturn and its satellite Titan.

SELEX Galileo, of Finmeccanica, will participate in the LAVEX exhibition to be held from the 5th to the
8th of October in Tripoli, Libya.
SELEX Galileo is actively working with its Libyan Customers to develop the best and most effective
solutions for their surveillance and homeland security requirements by leveraging on the group's
international leadership in integrated airborne mission systems for surveillance, in Unmanned Aerial
Systems (UAS) and in advanced Electro-Optical (EO) systems and turrets (with more than 750
systems sold in recent years), last generation radar and land equipments.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is testing SELEX Galileo's SiREUS, a miniature solid-state gyro sensor that will be the smallest ever flown in Space.
 
Three sugar cube-sized detectors form the heart of the gyro, which is designed to aid the orientation of a satellite in Space. SiREUS will be installed in the ESA's future Earth observation mission Sentinel-3. The mission is to be launched in 2013 for Europe's Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) network and will monitor the health of the planet, making global ocean, ice and land vegetation observations.
 
SiREUS uses Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) to incorporate moving parts on a micro scale. It is robust and radiation hardened to provide a 3-axes gyro solution for use in geostationary satellites as well as having applications in scientific and exploratory Space missions.

SELEX Galileo, of Finmeccanica, has secured a second contract for UK MoD's Grand Challenge winning Team Stellar's SATURN tactical ISTAR Unmanned System. SELEX Galileo is the prime contract holder and system integrator for this new agreement which is the latest in a series of pace setting 100 day delivery programmes.

SELEX Galileo, of Finmeccanica, successfully completed an intensive flight campaign for its Tactical
Unmanned Aerial System (TUAS) Falco to expand its ISR capabilities through the integration of
multiple sensors and additional functionality. The flight campaign included flights at SELEX Galileo's
dedicated UAS facility at Parc Aberporth in Wales and at the UAV Arctic Flight Test Centre in Finnish
Lapland, owned by Robonic, the Finnish catapult producer.