Departure from Genoa of the AHTSupply Vessel Nos Aries
Nos Aries - Neri Group
Departure from Genoa, the city of Columbus, the first major Italian naval adventure in that space.
Saturday, October 4th 2014 left from the docks of the Stazione Marittima the Supply Vessel tugore Nos Aries owned by FRATELLI NERI and directed to the Pacific Ocean, where the spacecraft will recover Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle return from an unprecedented ambitious mission throughout with a European (and Italian) under the auspices Space Agency.
This is the space shuttle Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV), which will carry a sub-orbital flight intended to test the structures and materials, designed to handle correctly the controlled re-entry into the atmosphere of future reusable vehicles.
Not only is the Italian Space Agency has a key role in the program, but the national aerospace industry took part, with a coordinating role in the construction of the vehicle (assembled in the workshops of Thales-Alenia in Turin), has the responsibility development and management of the ground segment (mission control center, ground stations, communications network with the center ALTEC), and – through an innovative cross-sector cooperation – will also manage the recovery in the sea after his return to the atmosphere.
The maritime part not only took a simple “service”, but the implementation of a real strategic integration, because the ship will operate the recovery will also be one of the elements of the control system on the ground of the mission, and not the least important.
This challenge was taken up by the “FRATELLI NERI” in Livorno, which won the international tender on the basis of technical and economic organized by Thales in 2011 with a proposal that called for the construction of a medium specially designed for an investment of 15 million EUR.
Built in the yards Yuexin in China, the Nos Aries is a AHTS Tug provided with DP-2 class system for automatically maintaining the position controlled GPS, a length of 60 meters, with double propeller for a total of 6,000 HP, and equipped with a deck of 370 square meters of the free surface.
The ship will fly the Italian flag (ulterior motive of prestige for the Italian Space Agency), and will have Italian crew. Making use of extensive experience in both the recovery at sea in difficult conditions or even extreme, both supply-vessels in offshore operations, NERI has been able to guarantee the provision of the means and the ability to manage their use even in the face the special needs of this unusual assignment.
While not exceptional nor for size nor by weight, the space vehicle, in fact presents risk elements specific (for example the residues of the fuel system of rockets directional) and requires special precautions in handling for the purposes of the subsequent phases of technical verification post flight, which will begin immediately after that this will be hoisted on the deck and inserted into the hangar by technicians Thales-Alenia present on the ship.
The launch pad of IXV is in Kourou in French Guyana (where summer came the various materials, all parties from Genoa). From Kourou ship will move to Panama to be ready to reach the Pacific and the area for the landing in time according to the schedule of the launch in the second half of October. After recovery at sea, the ship will return the spacecraft to Genoa in Thales-Alenia for further study.
