Tyvak International SRL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Terran Orbital Corporation and a leading European nano and microsatellite manufacturer based in Torino, Italy, announced that they have completed the formal delivery of the Hera Milani satellite to the European Space Agency. For this historical event, a ceremony was held on March 14th at Tyvak International’s premises in Torino, Italy. Ian Carnelli, Hera’s Project Manager for the European Space Agency attended the delivery event together with the Italian Space Agency, the Milani development team, and numerous local and international dignitaries.
Hera Milani is a nanosatellite funded by Italy and developed by Tyvak International for the European Space Agency, devoted to the visual inspection and dust detection of the Didymos asteroid following the DART impact. As of the first of ESA’s deep-space nanosatellites, Milani will be launched aboard ESA’s Hera mothercraft in 2024 and will travel for hundreds of thousands of kilometers to reach the asteroid. Milani will be the first nanosatellite ever to orbit an asteroid.
Tyvak International is responsible for Milani’s design, build testing, and mission operations. This exceptional development has been carried forward together with the valuable support of companies, entities and universities from Italy, Finland and Czech Republic: Politecnico di Milano, Politecnico di Torino, ALTEC, Centro Italiano Ricerche Aerospaziali, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, VTT, HULD, Brno University of Technology, KUVA Space, University of Helsinki, and the Institute of Geology of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
“This is a paramount achievement for Tyvak International,” Margherita Cardi, Tyvak International VP Programs and Milani Program Manager said. “Milani is now ready to be delivered to ESA and undergo the system tests with Hera, to ensure the validation of the interfaces and the end-to-end communication prior to the launch. The journey is not over, but we are a step closer to Didymos, and it was a real honor to host the ceremony allowing all those who contributed to this amazing project to celebrate together.”
Ian Carnelli, HERA ESA project manager said “ESA’s first deep-space CubeSat was developed in record time by an incredible team. ESA is extremely impressed by the skills, motivation, and commitment of Tyvak International. We are eager to see the spacecraft in action and help us unveil the many mysteries around the Didymos asteroid system.”
The Italian Space Agency and European Space Agency decided to dedicate the Mission to Prof. Andrea Milani, who passed away in 2018. Special guest Franco Ongaro, Chief Space Officer of Leonardo and former ESA Director said “When Prof. Milani proposed the Don Quijote concept to ESA we were only dreaming of protecting future generations from potential asteroid impacts. Today we are writing a page of Space history, and science-fiction has become a reality. Even more, innovative and miniaturized systems are pushing reality further, Milani as we saw it today was not even conceivable in 2003!”. The Tyvak International team will support the next system-level testing phase in ESTEC, in view of the launch planned for October 2024.
Click here to learn more about Tyvak International's MILANI Satellite.
