Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo-Finmeccanica (33%), today announced the signing of a new contract with Orbital ATK, Inc. (NYSE: OA) a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies. The announcement was made at the Farnborough International Airshow in Farnborough, UK.
Under terms of the agreement, Thales Alenia Space will supply nine additional Pressurized Cargo Modules (PCM) to Orbital ATK for upcoming cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS). The cargo module is designed to transport crew supplies and science experiments on Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract. Cygnus recently delivered 7,900 pounds of cargo and science experiments to astronauts aboard the station and successfully completed its fifth mission under the contract. Orbital ATK is scheduled to complete 10 CRS-1 missions to the International Space Station before transitioning to launch cargo logistics missions under the CRS-2 contract in 2019.
“We are truly proud of the renewed trust that Orbital ATK has put in us,” said Walter Cugno, Vice President, Exploration and Science of Thales Alenia Space. “The signing of this latest contract represents the continued vote of confidence from a valued customer in our engineering and our facility that provides pressurized cargo modules to re-supply the International Space Station. We look forward to continuing this successful relationship for many years to come.”
New airport technologies unveiled at the Paris Air Show this week promise robots replacing immigration officers and much faster identification of criminals through their biometric data.
French electrical systems company Thales premiered its new equipment designed to speed up passage through airports.
In their vision of the future, passengers will no longer deal with check-in desks -- an innovation already making inroads in many airports.
To take that even further, Thales has designed a machine that not only scans passports and prints boarding passes, but also records an image of the passenger's face and iris, which are then shared with computers around the airport.
The images are already in the system when the passenger arrives at the immigration desk, allowing a tall, white robot to automatically confirm the person's identity without the need for human border staff.
"You would only need one agent for every four or five machines," said Pascal Zenoni, a Thales manager presenting the equipment at the air show.
"These systems can free up staff for the police and create more space in the airport," he added.
The passenger's face is also printed in encrypted form on the boarding pass so that it can be scanned by staff at the gate for a final identity check.
Thales has today signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Qatar Armed Forces to assist in the development of an Optionally Piloted Vehicle – Aircraft (OPV-A), a high performance Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) system, and the delivery of a full end-to-end training solution.
The OPV-A airframe, to be selected by the Qatar Armed Forces, will be integrated with a mission systems capability to enable the optionally piloted capability.
