Thales Alenia Space

Rebuilding for Resilience

Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture of Thales and Leonardo, designs satellites and systems in Italy for telecommunications, Earth observation, and space exploration to support sustainable advancements on Earth and beyond.

After the devastating earthquake in L’Aquila in 2009, the Thales Alenia Space facility was severely damaged and considered unsafe. All the equipment and production were moved towards a temporary shelter. Considering the importance and the excellent standards of the facility, Thales Alenia, decided to rebuild a new, larger and more technologically advanced site on a seismic proof foundation in l’Aquila.

The design was challenging due to the urgent timeline, resulting in very short project time in combination with a limited budget. The project was developed in line with the many requirements of the site and the very particular and strict requirements imposed by several different production lines. The factory includes one of the biggest cleanrooms in Italy, and the building has two different office floors.

The goal of the project was to design a highly redundant and resilient MEP architecture within a limited budget. A key focus was the structural aspect. To achieve a seismic-proof building, the chosen strategy was to place the entire structure on a grid of seismic isolators installed at the basement level. Additionally, the MEP equipment was mounted on seismic platforms within the energy center.

Deerns provided MEP services for the schematic design of new €42 million plant, as well as design development and construction documentation, including the seismic-proof Clean Utility Plant for gases and liquids such as UPH, N2, H2, O2, Ar, etc.