On December 1, 2023 at 6:19 PM (UTC), the first Italian all-electric satellite “MicroHETSat”, designed and built by SITAEL for the European Space Agency with Italian Space Agency (ASI) support, lifted off from California on board a SpaceX Falcon-9 mission. After commissioning, the satellite is now in full operation.
“There is legitimate enthusiasm and not only at SITAEL”, reports Marco Molina, Managing Director Sales and Products of the Italian company SITAEL, part of the Angel Group, from its headquarters in Mola di Bari. “All of the stakeholders have followed this maiden flight with high expectations, and we can now proudly report that we are making a key milestone in the history of the space economy in Italy and Europe with the first-ever Italian Hall-effect thruster operating in space. We are one of the few in the world to do so.” “This success has to do with technology”, continues Molina, “but also with entrepreneurship and the long-term vision from the private as well as institutional sides”.
SITAEL is, in fact, a 100% private company that is owned by Angel Holding. It was established as “SITAEL SpA” in 2012 by Cav. Vito Pertosa and is now led by CEO Chiara Pertosa, who is the founder’s daughter.
With its 250 employees, it is the largest space company that is entirely owned by an Italian entrepreneur. “The company has grown during these years with a practical, and we can now say prosperous, progression of a real space economy case”, Molina continues. “There was a research group at University of Pisa extremely competent in plasma physics, at the basis of space electric propulsion. The ingenuity of Cav. Pertosa, the entrepreneur, was to envisage a future practical use of these studies. This is why a spin-off of University of Pisa was incorporated in SITAEL in 2014, fertilized by the industrial mindset of the Angel Group 1,600 engineers.”