Leonardo, an Italian state-owned defense firm, has been commissioned by Italy’s Ministry of Defence to explore the creation of Europe’s first military space cloud project, MILSCA. This initiative aims to equip Italy’s government and armed forces with high-performance computing, cloud, AI, and storage capabilities directly in space. Leonardo will collaborate with Telespazio and Thales Alenia Space, part of a joint venture with France’s Thales, over a two-year study period.
MILSCA is designed to ensure strategic data access, including communications, earth observation, and navigation, enhancing speed and flexibility in data processing and sharing. The project will feature 100 Terabytes of data storage and a processing power of over 250 TFLOPS. The study will initially define the project’s architecture, followed by the development of a digital twin.
“In a multi-domain scenario, management, security, and rapid exchange of an ever-increasing amount of data, much of which is tactical, become strategic elements for the country’s defense. We will be the first in Europe to develop a Space Cloud project…,” Leonardo’s Chief Innovation Officer Simone Ungaro said in a statement.
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