OHB Italia awarded contract for four further Flyeye telescopes for protection of space environment

Milan, 19. September 2022. OHB Italia, a subsidiary of space group OHB SE, signed a contract with the Italian Space Agency ASI for delivering four Flyeye telescopes dedicated to Space Surveillance. The value of the contract amounts to EUR 54.5 million.

The Flyeye is a newly telescope able to observe large areas of the visible sky at every exposure, detecting so-called Near Earth Objects such as asteroids or space debris about. The telescopes will be installed in different geographical locations around the globe, in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, allowing the reduction of collision risks among space assets and other operational spacecraft or space debris. The first Flyeye, which was also built by OHB Italia, is scheduled to be installed at its location in Sicily in 2023.

“The deployment of a Flyeye network will allow OHB Italia and Italy to be world leaders in optical observation for Space Surveillance & Tracking. It is essential to guarantee a safer and more secure orbital environment,” says Roberto Aceti, Managing Director of OHB Italia. “Today, space debris is one of the principal threats to satellites. Our satellite-based infrastructure is essential for the security of space assets providing services on which all of us rely in our daily lives, from meteorology and communications to global transport of goods and passengers. It is estimated that there are more than 750,000 debris objects larger than 1 cm in Earth orbit, any of which can damage operational satellites. Given this, anyone can appreciate the remarkable importance of Flyeye Network ground-based telescopes.”

The telescopes are capable of tracking space debris in HLEO ("High Low Earth Orbit” between 1,000 and 2,000 km) and in the MEO (“Medium Earth Orbit” between 2,000 and about 34,000 km) by providing the basic data and trajectories to identify potential hazards to orbital infrastructure and to manage any anti-collision maneuvers.

More about the Flyeye telescope in our magazine.