European Space Agency’s second Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-2) was launched by Arianespace from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Christened Johannes Kepler, in honour of the German astronomer and mathematician, the second ATV flight model will rendezvous and dock with the orbiting International Space Station in fully automatic mode after eight days of autonomous flight. The Johannes Kepler ATV will deliver experiments, equipment, spare parts and propellant as well as food and oxygen for the astronauts currently onboard the ISS.
Vigilance learnt that Thales Alenia Space plays a significant role in the development and production of this highly sophisticated vehicle. On behalf of Astrium Space Transportation, the ATV prime contractor, Thales Alenia Space is responsible for the design and manufacturing of the ATV’s Integrated Cargo Carrier (ICC), passive thermal control system, electrical power unit, Telemetry Tracking and Control (TTC) communication equipment and support to system tests . Thales Alenia Space also took part in the integration and testing of the whole space vehicle and in the launch campaign in Kourou.
The ICC, built by Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, comprises a 4.6-meter diameter and 4-meter long pressurized cylindrical module that weighs 4 tons. It incorporates an integrated docking system to the ISS at one end, and the propellant refuelling system at the other. These two components - derived from systems already operational on the Russian Progress and Soyuz vehicles - were provided by Russian company RSC-Energia.
“Once again Thales Alenia Space is a key partner in a space mission of great technical complexity and strategic importance. The Johannes Kepler ATV is the second in a series of five flight models currently in production at our Turin facilities. Three more units will be delivered through the year 2013,” stated Luigi Pasquali, President and CEO of Thales Alenia Space Italia. “We have been working on the ATV program since the year 2000, heading a team of eight European, U.S. and Russian subcontractors. Several improvements are currently in an advanced stage of investigation with the aim to enhance the design in order to increase the transportation capacity for pressurized cargo, as well as the flexibility of use. Some of these upgrades are planned to be also implemented as retrofit kit on the third flight unit, Edoardo Amaldi, which was delivered to Astrium at the end of 2010.”
While docked to the Space Station, the ATV will be a lot more than a “container” for ferrying equipment and goods necessary to the life of the astronauts. It will become a temporary module of the orbital outpost. It will also have the fundamental task of providing propulsion for the orbiting structure. The Johannes Kepler ATV propulsion system will be used to maintain the Station’s orbit several times during its mission. The Johannes Kepler ATV will remain on orbit for three months, prior to de-docking from the ISS and a destructive re-entry into the atmosphere.
With five ICCs, three Multi Purpose Logistics Modules (MPLMs) - one of which has been turned into a Permanent Logistics Module (PMM) - the pressurized module for ESA’s Columbus laboratory, the Harmony and Tranquility node modules, the Cupola, and nine pressurized cargo modules for the U.S. Cygnus resupply ships, Thales Alenia Space is the leading provider for pressurized space in the ISS, on behalf of ESA, NASA, the Italian Space Agency (ASI), as well as European and U.S. industry.
Thales beats them all...wins two contracts in Latin America
Vigilance can authoritatively confirm that Thales’ unbeatable records in the transport systems field last week, won them
two new contracts to construct Metro lines in Latin America, at Panama City and Santo Domingo. These contracts indisputably sealed Thales’s position as leader in the transport systems field.
Supervision and telecommunications for the Metro of Panama
The Alstom/Thales/Cim-Tso/Sofratesa Consortium was selected to supply train control systems for the first Metro line of Panama City. In this framework, Thales will carry out the supervision and the telecommunications for the line.
This line, 13.7km in length of which 7.2km are tunnels and 6.5km are viaducts, will be punctuated by 13 stations and will link Los Andes in the north of the city with the Albrook district in the south. It will be operational from late 2013.
With 1.7 million inhabitants, Panama is the most modern city and the most commercially active in the region. The new Metro will improve traffic flow in the capital.
Thales at the heart of the transport system of Santo Domingo’s line 2.
For Santo Domingo, the Dominican operator OPRET (Oficina Para el Reordenamiento del Transporte - Office for the Reorganisation of Transport) has awarded a contract for the construction of the second line of the Santo Domingo Metro to the “Siemens/Thales/Cim-Tso/Sofratesa Consortium. In the framework of this contract, Thales will supply its entire Transport package including the systems for communication, supervision, signalling and ticketing.
21 km long, the line will eventually have 20 stations and will cross Santo Domingo from East to West and from Los Alcarrizos to San Luis. The line will take on the daily transportation of around 400,000 people and will meet line 1, which is already equipped with the Thales supervision, telecommunications, security and ticketing systems.
The Metro of the city of Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic, is part of an important national plan to improve transport. The first line aimed to remedy vehicle congestion. Line 2, as well as the 4 planned additional lines will complete the series.
An enthusiastic Cesak Kuberek , Thales VP in Latin America proclaimed: "These two contracts consolidate the strong position of Thales in the transport field in Latin America, where it already has a good reputation for its work on the Metros of Caracas, Santiago de Chile, Santo Domingo and the sub-urban line in Mexico” Kuberek added: "Today, our knowhow is widely recognised and enables us to work on the most modern Metros in the world."
Thales backs industry best practice
Thales, leader in information systems and communications security, last week lent its weight to industry best practice saying its range of hardware security modules (HSMs) fully supports the recently issued best practice recommendations for the use of cryptographic algorithms and key lengths as specified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) SP 800-131A.
“Thales has long championed the use of hardware protection for keys and the use of longer, more secure keys in business critical applications, and we are pleased that these best practices are becoming more widely recognised”
Vigilance learnt that in response to the ever changing security landscape NIST has issued new guidance on the use of cryptography to ensure the privacy and integrity of sensitive information and messages. The updated recommendations define the algorithms and key lengths that are permitted for sensitive but unclassified Federal data and provide guidance on the longevity of the security offered by these schemes based on their best estimate of prevailing technology. Most importantly, the guidance warns against the continued use of certain algorithms and key lengths and encourages users to transition their applications over time to use stronger cryptographic keys and more secure algorithms, raising the security bar for would-be cyber criminals. Although these recommendations are only mandatory for US Government data - they serve to define the best practices for protecting commercial data worldwide.
Thales HSMs support the new NIST recommendations enabling users to fully comply with the new guidelines. Thales HSMs support the widest range of algorithms and key sizes and very importantly, are optimized to ensure that the performance impact of transitioning to use longer and therefore stronger keys has been minimized. HSMs have long been accepted as an industry best practice for protecting encryption keys because they overcome the inherent security weaknesses of managing and using keys in software.
“Thales has long championed the use of hardware protection for keys and the use of longer, more secure keys in business critical applications, and we are pleased that these best practices are becoming more widely recognised,” says Franck Greverie, Thales Vice President in charge of Information Technology Security activities.
Greverie added: “Support for NIST SP 800-131A not only gives our customers the ability to adopt the best possible security practices in terms of key length but also minimizes the performance penalties that have traditionally accompanied the use of longer keys. This is another example of Thales meeting and exceeding industry and government recommendations to give our customers confidence that their investment in hardware-enforced security will be protected as technology, regulation and best practice continue to evolve.”
NIST, which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is responsible for developing standards and guidelines, including minimum requirements, for providing adequate information security for all agency operations and assets for use by federal agencies. While the NIST recommendations are designed for federal agencies, they are generally accepted as standards to be adopted by non-governmental organizations worldwide.