Artist rendition of SITAEL’s Striving satellite. Photo: SITAEL

RUAG Space signed a cooperation agreement with Italian space company Siatel as the two companies work together on a key European space program. RUAG Space will provide payload electronics for testing purposes that will fly on the first Striving small satellite being launched on the Vega SSMS POC flight in 2019.

The Striving satellite will offer commercial services like access to space for testing, validating and/or operating technologies and solutions to both private and public entities. Striving is a partnership between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Sitael, under the Pioneer Program. The Pioneer program helps companies to provide in-orbit demonstration and validation for third parties. Pioneer falls under the ESA’s ARTES (Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems) program.

The RUAG Space Electronics products on Striving aim to cover essential products used for satellites, such as navigation receivers and on-board computers. They are based on Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) components, and aim to achieve crucial flight heritage on this launch.