This multi-year framework agreement will support Arianespaces Rideshare and Piggyback missions.
During the International Astronautical Congress, Arianespace has signed a multi-year agreement with Italian company SAB Launch Services (SAB-LS), which specialises in launch services for small satellites, to serve as an Arianespace partner to provide end-to-end services for nanosatellites on Arianespace missions.
The agreement is specific to the supply of hardware, mission preparation and integration services for CubeSats, and the transportation of payloads from SAB-LS European launch integration facilities, in Brno (Czech Republic), to Europes Spaceport, in Kourou (French Guiana). This agreement enables Arianespace to expand its services and capabilities for integrating small payloads on rideshare and piggyback missions.
Commenting on the agreement, Marino Fragnito, Head of Vega Business Unit at Arianespace, said: “This partnership with SAB-LS will provide us with increased flexibility to better address the needs of the small sat community worldwide. Following the success of the emblematic mission VV16, the Proof of Concept of our Small Spacecraft Mission Services (SSMS), we demonstrated the effectiveness of our piggyback solutions with small payloads integrated on VV19 and VV20. With Vega C, qualified with its maiden flight on July 13, we have an increasing number of opportunities in our manifest. This availability, coupled with our cooperation with SAB-LS, will allow Arianespace to answer the booming demand for small sat services.”
Marco Mariani, CEO of SAB Launch Services, added: “At SAB we are really excited with this agreement, which recognises all the efforts done since 2018 to push the Vega services among the small satellites community. SAB-LS has been created following the SSMS development carried out by our sister company SAB Aerospace. We started as the SSMS institutional CubeSat integrator and we have been strongly supporting the launch services from Europe. Thanks to SSMS services for small satellites, we are now witnessing an increasing appreciation from the market for European launching solutions. I think that our commitment to Vega and the close cooperation with Arianespaces team has been recognised and has allowed us to reach this strategic agreement. This positions SAB as the main partner of Arianespace for the provision of services to nanosatellites. We consider Arianespace a long-term strategic partner, and we aim at expanding our collaboration to new services.”
This agreement follows the success of Vega C’s maiden flight, launched on July 13. The next Vega C mission, VV22, is planned for late November 2022.
