Spanish industry goes to France's Euronaval and Germany's Space Tech in search of alliances and contracts
- Satlantis wins a contract with the American company Teledyne
- A generic corvette class for the navies of Germany, Spain and France
The Spanish aerospace and defence industry is fully immersed in the process of crossing borders and increasing its presence in international markets. It is a widespread practice, which seeks to increase sales, expand market share, diversify risks, form alliances to tackle complex projects, improve competitiveness and take advantage of the opportunities offered by globalisation.
The commitment to internationalisation is corroborated by the continued presence of many different national companies and start-ups at international trade fairs and exhibitions on all five continents. The most recent of these are the two important trade fairs and business fairs held in November in Germany and France.
The most recent one took place from the 18th to the 20th of this month in the German city of Bremen, 315 kilometres west of Berlin, the capital of Germany. It was the Space Tech Expo Europe, a business meeting that brought together some 700 companies from the supply and engineering chain of the space sector, to promote business relations and foster industrial cooperation to undertake joint projects.
More than 30 Spanish companies have come to the Hanseatic city to showcase their products and services. One of them, PLD Space, has used the showcase provided by the German fair to announce to the European space community gathered there its alliance with Deimos Space, in its challenge to make the Miura 5 launcher, the big brother of the Miura 1, which took off from Huelva in October 2023, a reality throughout 2025.
The agreement staged in Bremen is due to the fact that PLD has selected Deimos -which on 31 October passed into Indra's hands- to, between the two companies, take on the development of the guidance, navigation and control subsystem. Known by its acronym GNC, it is the technology responsible for stabilising, directing and precisely controlling the flight of the Miura 5 during its ascent, from the moment of take-off until the satellites or payloads it is carrying are positioned in orbit.
Satlantis wins a contract with the American company Teledyne
To realise the Miura 5's specific GNC subsystem, the two companies have set up joint teams of engineers and technicians, who are already working on the basis of the technology, software tools and applications provided by Deimos. This includes the sequential electronics, which is responsible for giving the order to separate the first propulsion stage at the right moment from the second stage, which continues in flight until the payloads are released into space.
According to Raul Torres, co-founder and CEO of PLD, ‘Deimos’ proven experience strengthens our ability to provide our customers with accurate, reliable and flexible missions, while ensuring high standards of safety and performance’. The agreement also includes Deimos taking over the verification and validation of the on-board software.
Satlantis, whose CEO Juan Tomás Hernani has managed to attract the interest of Daniel Waller, vice-president of the American company Teledyne Space Imaging, has also made a strong showing in Bremen. The Spanish company has been commissioned to be responsible for the main electronics of the very high resolution CIS125 TDI detector, which Teledyne is developing and with which it hopes to achieve a resolution of less than 10 centimetres in Earth observation and planetary exploration.
Satlantis attended the Bremen fair as part of the Space Spain pavilion organised by ICEX and the Spanish Economic and Commercial Office in Berlin, which hosted Acorde, Alén Space, Anteral, Arkadia Arsoft, ASE Optics, CITD Engineering, Compoxy, Emxys, Eye4Sky, FentISS, Fossa, GMV, Hegan, Instituto Astronomico de Canarias, Ienai Space, Idom, Lidax, Logo2, Microlan, Nanostine, Occam Space, PLD Space, Prosix, Radian Systems Sanzar, Starmus, Telstar and Uarx Space. Also in the national pavilion was DHV Technology, a Malaga-based company that designs and manufactures solar panels for space applications and has clients in 36 countries.
The other event took place a few kilometres from Paris at the beginning of this month. Called Euronaval, it is the main European trade fair related to the naval defence sector, which brought together around 500 exhibitors from all over the world. Among the Spanish representation was Navantia, whose president, Ricardo Domínguez, his counterpart from the French shipyard Naval Group, Pierre Eric Pommelet, and from the Italian Fincantieri, Pierroberto Folgiero, have staged the agreement in principle that opens the doors of the second phase of the so-called Multi-Purpose Modular Corvette or MMPC, acronym of Multi Modular Patrol Corvette.
A generic corvette class for the navies of Germany, Spain and France
Initially known as the European Patrol Corvette, the initiative has been selected under the EU's Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), is managed within the framework of the Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAR) and is financed with 154.5 million euros from the European Defence Fund. The Greek company Hydrus, an engineering company focused on the maritime, energy and defence industries, is expected to join the pact shortly.
The aim of the second phase of the MMPC project is to complete the common design basis and achieve a high level of interoperability and standardisation to enable the ships to perform a wide range of missions. The phase now underway involves initiating the production of two prototypes, a so-called Long Range Corvette (LRM) and a Full Combat Corvette (FCM).
The Oesia Group, with its four specialised companies, was present at Euronaval for the first time. Cipherbit, dedicated to secure communications, exhibited the Cerberus cryptographic encryptor for voice, data and IP, as well as the Ermes multi-domain key manager; Inster, dedicated to satellite communications, showed its Sailsat terminal for communications in low orbits in naval environments. Also the FoldSat device, a terminal for the OneWeb satellite constellation.
The Tecnobit branch exhibited the naval version of its Argos optronic system, a high-performance multisensor device, and its Orison gyro-stabilised camera on 2 and 4 axes. Its drone subsidiary, UAV Navigation, focused on GNC subsystems, exhibited its range of equipment for flying in environments with interfered, denied or supplanted GNSS signals, a prelude to the inauguration on 25 November of its High Technology Centre in San Sebastián de las Reyes (Madrid), where it is working on the autopilot for the demonstrator of the future European FCAS fighter.
Indra's stand presented an automated signal intelligence system designed to detect, analyse, classify and identify threats in the entire electromagnetic band used by ships and submarines trying to hide. Also present at Euronaval was Gabadi, a company with a presence in 14 countries, dedicated to supplying and installing equipment to accommodate the crews of surface ships and submarines. Industrias Ferri, specialised in launching and recovery systems, cranes, rescue systems, Marine Instruments and Hawke HTS MCT, focused on electromechanical and hydraulic equipment, were also present.