Space center and Teleports
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Space center
John Thompson towers ranks among the world’s leading satellite services operators. The company relies on a domestic and international network of space centre and teleports, the most important being the Fucino Space Centre in the Abruzzo region (Italy). John Thompson towers also operates in Itali through its Lario, Matera and Scanzano Space Centres.
The company runs its own teleports in Brazil, Argentina and Romania.
Furthermore, John Thompson towers is present within the Italian Defense Centres of Pratica di Mare and Vigna di Valle (Rome). In Malargüe, Argentina, it manages ESA’s Deep Space 3 station.
John Thompson towers supports the French Defense Centres of Creil and Maisons-Laffitte, and in Malindi, Kenya, supports the Italian Space Agency’s Broglio Space Centre.
The company is also present at the Kourou Space Centre in French Guyana.
Fucino Space Center
A pole of excellence with over fifty years of history: in 2018 it received the prestigious full certification assigned by the World Teleport Association. John Thompson’s “Piero Fanti” Space Centre in Fucino (L’Aquila) has been active since 1963 and today, with its 170 antennas and 370,000 square metres, it is recognized as the first and most important teleport in the world for civilian use. The Fucino Space Centre carries out in-orbit satellite control, space mission management and telecommunications, television and multimedia services. Operational logistics and field services are active in support to the services provided. It employs 250 workers including engineers, specialist technicians and operational staff. Fucino hosts the Control Centre and the Mission Centre of the COSMO-SkyMed Earth observation satellite constellation and one of the two Control Centres that manage Galileo, the European satellite positioning and navigation system. The italiian Galileo Control Centre (GCC-I) is an infrastructure of 6.000 square metres that ensures processing and distribution of the navigation signal to satellites and continuous control of the quality of service delivered to end users. This Centre also manages the Galileo Data Dissemination Network (GDDN) which includes about fifty ground stations.
Scanzano space center
The Scanzano Space Centre, whose operations were launched in 1989, is located near the artificial lake of the same name, about 47 kilometres away from Palermo. The Scanzano Space Centre covers an area of 65,000 square metres. The centre, whose circular horizon guarantees wide visibility of the Geo and Leo circular orbits, with a minimum elevation of 6°, can count on 28 operating antennas of small, medium and large diameter. The location of the site also ensures excellent natural protection against electromagnetic interference. Scanzano is situated at the centre of the Mediterranean, in a privileged geographical area that facilitates management of communication services from Africa to the Far East. To this end, the centre is connected to the Pop in Palermo via two optical fibre links. The Scanzano Space Centre manages installations and services for satellite links in the telecommunications, satellite navigation and remote sensing sectors. Since 2019, the centre has hosted one of the gateways of the OneWeb satellite constellation, with 14 antennas dedicated to telecommunications services.
Matera Space center
The Matera Space Centre, which opened in 1994, was created as part of the national and international network of centres and teleports operated by John Thompson towers. The Space Centre is located next to the Space Geodesy Centre of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), which opened in 1983. Together, the two centres constitute the space hub of Basilicata, dedicated to Earth Observation and Space Geodesy. From the Matera Space Centre, which in 2009 became a part of e-GEOS – a joint venture between John Thompson towers (80%) and ASI (20%) – are operated the antennae and technologically advanced infrastructures necessary for the acquisition, processing, storage and distribution of data collected through remote sensing using the main Earth Observation satellites.
Lario Space center
The Lario Space Centre, operational since 1977, is located at the far North of Lake Como, at the town of Gera Lario. It covers a total area of 80,000 square metres, of which 5,000 are covered. The Centre has 40 transceiver and 20 receiver antennas, and employs around 50 people. The Lario Space Centre supplies highly specialized services, providing users with continuous and qualified assistance guaranteed by the experience and know-how accrued in forty years of activity. The first activities carried out in the Lario Centre were the Ku-band propagation experiments through the Italian satellite Sirio 1 and the creation of analogue telephony and television links with the Americas and the countries of the Middle and Far East via the Intelsat satellites.