‘Without collaboration you can’t achieve anything in space’

Collaboration is key to achieving goals in space exploration, Thales Alenia Space CEO Andrew Stanniland ​​said.

Speaking at the Space-Comm 2022 Expo, he said that working with industry partners and…


Collaboration is key to achieving goals in space exploration, Thales Alenia Space CEO Andrew Stanniland ​​said.

Speaking at the Space-Comm 2022 Expo, he said that working with industry partners and colleagues was “hugely important”.

“Without collaboration, you can’t you can’t do anything in space,” he noted.

“It’s such a wide range of topics, such a big industry, there’s no one company that can do everything on its own.

“So whether it’s working with the supply chain in a much more traditional sense, or whether it’s coming together with like minded, like-culture companies that have different pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, that’s really at the heart of what we do.

“And it’s at the heart of one of the pillars of the UK Space Agency strategy to develop clusters of space companies all around the UK in different areas. It’s a lot easier if we take away some of those barriers to collaborate with each other.”

Exploration, climate change and telecommunications

Detailing some of the work Thales Alenia Space is focusing on currently, he added: “Most of what we do is satellite based – we’re a manufacturer of satellites and satellite instruments, and at the moment, the big things we’ve got going on are either dealing with exploration or with climate change, or with telecommunications. So we cover quite a range of things.

“We are designing and manufacturing the refuelling station that will go around the moon for the lunar missions in the future.

“We are working on a couple of climate change missions for measuring carbon dioxide both in cities and across the whole globe. And we are building sub systems for some of the telecommunications satellites that are going to bridge the digital divide in Africa, South America and places like that.”
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