Anteral, and innovator of antennas, passives and radar technologies, have partnered with Thales Alenia Space Italia, a prime contractor of the ESA mission, to be part of the Space Rider project. Space Rider will be a reusable unmanned space vehicle that will reach Low Earth Orbit to carry out different types of missions. Anteral is developing the safety subsystem antennas, that will help make Space Rider a reality.
The Space Rider would be fully integrated with Vega-C to provide a space laboratory for payloads to operate in orbit for a variety of applications in missions lasting about two months. Space Rider will be launched on Vega-C in 2023 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guyana, remain in space in a low-drag altitude orbit, re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere, land with its payload with the help of parachutes, and then refurbished and prepared for the next mission.
Space Rider will have the potential to allow:
- Free-flying applications such as experiments in microgravity.
- In-orbit technology demonstration and validation for applications for: exploration such as robotics, Earth observation such as instrumentation and others such as Earth science, telecommunication etc.
- Surveillance applications such as Earth disaster monitoring, satellites inspection.
