2nd ExoMars Industry Day 2010
1 October 2010
The 2nd ExoMars Industry Day, held on 23 September 2010 at the ALTEC facilities in Italy, was attended by 170 participants, representing 80 companies from 14 countries, including the USA and Canada.
 |
| Representatives from ESA and Industry at the 2nd ExoMars Industry Day event in Turin, Italy. Credit: TAS-I |
The purpose of the event was to provide a forum to discuss the progress of the ExoMars programme as well as to explore its programmatic and technological challenges. The large attendance on the day demonstrates the significant interest in the ExoMars programme within the space industry community.
Among the keynote speakers at the event were the Italian Space Agency Programme Manager, Enrico Flamini, the Prime Contractor (Thales Alenia Space) Director of Science Programmes, Vincenzo Giorgio, the ESA ExoMars project manager, Don McCoy, and the Prime Contractor Project Manager, Pasquale Santoro.
 |
|
Representatives from ESA and Industry at the 2nd ExoMars Industry Day event in Turin, Italy. Credit: TAS-I |
In his presentation of the ExoMars Programme, Don McCoy underlined the achievements towards cooperation with NASA over the last year as well as the progress in the direction of a formal baseline review (the System Preliminary Design Review - SPDR). The latter will lead to the next step, which is the delivery of a financial proposal for the implementation phase of both ExoMars missions (2016 and 2018), scheduled to commence at the beginning of 2011.
Representatives from the space industry gave an overview of the overall current technical design (by Thales Alenia Space - Italy) and the individual mission elements: the Entry, Descent and Landing module and the Trace Gas Orbiter (by Thales Alenia Space - France), the Rover Vehicle (by Astrium Ltd - UK) and the Rover Operation Control Centre (by Altec - Italy).
 |
| Bilateral meetings between participants were held during the 2nd ExoMars Industry Day. Credit: TAS-I |
The plenary sessions of the morning were followed by bilateral meetings devoted to discussions of the procurement status for the ExoMars programme and future opportunities for the space industry. The lively discussions underlined the interest in the ExoMars programme.
In his concluding remarks, Don McCoy noted, "Participating in the ExoMars programme means contributing to some of the key quests of mankind today, in particular, the search for evidence of life beyond Earth". This sentiment, along with a great enthusiasm about the technological challenges inherent in the ExoMars programme, was widely shared by the participants at this 2nd ExoMars Industry Day.
The presentations from the 2nd ExoMars Industry Day are available by following the link in the right-hand menu.
For further information, please contact:
Thorsten Siwitza,
ExoMars Project Control and Administration Manager,
Directorate of Science and Robotic Exploration, ESA
Email: Thorsten.Siwitza@esa.int