Italy-UK PARTNERSHIP

PARTNERSHIP | Spring 2019 10 Interview with Luca Rossettini D-Orbit co-founder tells us a story of sustainability in the space D-Orbit is a service provider for the space sector who specialises in satellite manufacturing, launch, deployment, satellite operations, propulsion, and critical software.  Luca Rossettini, D-Orbit co-founder, speaks with Partnership about the company’s growth and how they have created a profitable business without threatening space sustainability. ICC: It all began with a lucky encounter in Silicon Valley. Can you explain to us how D-Orbit started? LR : When I realised the European Astronaut contest was going to continue without me, after going through almost all the selection phases, I decided to find my way to space. Thanks to a Fulbright scholarship, I had the opportunity to study business in Silicon Valley and started working on the first D-Orbit business plan, aiming to create the first in-orbit transportation infrastructure and services. In 2010 I realised that one of the biggest threats for the space market development, space debris, would soon increase exponentially with the launch of thousands of small and less reliable satellites. My roadmap from the vision of the orbital logistics infrastructure and in-orbit transportation was divided in markets, and space debris was the perfect market to start with. D-Orbit initial product was, in fact, a fully modular and scalable decommissioning system, to be installed either before launching the satellite in space or even, in the future, into already orbiting satellites. It was designed as a technology platform: every single module of the decommissioning system is a sort of Lego brick – even the software was created modularly – that could be reconfigured later on to create all the other solutions the space users would be looking for in the future.  In Silicon Valley, at Santa Clara University and later at NASA, I met Renato Panesi: he decided to join the