Kayser Italia s.r.l.

Kayser Italia is a Small Medium Enterprise (SME), a private independent aerospace system engineering company, owned by Dr. Valfredo Zolesi’s family. It has been incorporated in 1986, and since 1995 it is 100% Italian property.

The company is located in the countryside of Livorno, in the region of Tuscany, 30 Km south of the international airport of Pisa and 90 Km from Florence. In a modern building, the company has 5,000 sq. meters of property,organized into offices, meeting rooms, conference room, laboratories, clean room, manufacturing, inspection and integration area, and an User Support Operation center (USOC) for the support to the execution of experiments with astronauts on board the ISS. The working area is surrounded by a property of 22.000 sq. meters of Mediterranean woodland.

Since the beginning, Kayser Italia has participated to more than 50 space missions with over 80 payloads, all of them completed with full scientific, technical, economic and programmatic success. The staff consists of 50 high specialized engineers, with expertise in electronics, aeronautics, mechanics, thermodynamics, physics, computer science, optics and molecular biology. Their design and manufacturing capabilities, joined with a deep engineering background,have allowed the participation of the company both as prime-contractor as well as sub-contractor to many European Space Agency (ESA) and Italian Space Agency (ASI) programmes, especially in the area of life science (biology and human physiology).

The payloads developed by Kayser Italia have been flown on the Russian capsules Bion, Foton, Progress, Soyuz, on the Shuttle Transportation System (STS), on the Japanese HTV module, on the chinese Shenzhou-8, on the European ATV module, and of course on the International Space Station (ISS). The company is certified ISO 9001, and the personnel is qualified for manufacturing of electronic circuits and harness, and for their inspection, in accordance with ESA standards.

Kayser Italia supports grants and partnership programs with universities and research institutes and is actively involved in the promotion of the integration process between large and Small Medium Enterprises working in space.

Shape Memory Alloys

Actuators based on metals that change shape when subjected to heat. Kayser Italia has developed extensive applications of SMA for experiment units to run biology experiments in weightlessness on the International Space station, Russian capsules or other orbiting vehicles. The units have already flown on several ESA and ASI space  missions.

SEMBRA (ASI) - Sensoristica Multi-Bus per Robotica Spaziale

Definition of a communication bus standard for networks of low data-rate sensors and actuators, with layouts spanning up to one-hundred meters, with dual (wired + wireless) connectivity. In addition to the OSN architecture advantages, the Implementation of the dual bus standard will simplify ground testability of flight systems, with great economical advantages in terms of mission cost savings. A Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) implements the dual bus Sensor Network.

OSN (ESA) - On-board Sensor Network

A new communication bus standard for networks of low data-rate sensors and actuators (100kbps), with layouts spanning over tens to one-hundred meters. The communication bus specifications results in cabling simplification and mass and volume harness reduction. The implementation of the bus standard will also simplify ground testability of flight system, with great economical advantages in terms of mission cost savings.

TSS - Tensegrity Space Structures

To provide innovation in the field of deployable systems by exploiting tensegrity structures as a possible concept to deploy large aperture structures in space, avoiding or reducing to the maximum extent the presence of mechanical elements (e.g. hinge components, actuators, pulleys) in order to eliminate possible failure sources in the structure during its deployment.

Electro Active Polymers

Development of EAP materials to be used to monitor and control inflatable and deployable lightweight space structures.

Satellite Retroreflector Arrays

Development of two GNSS Retroreflector Arrays (GRA) addressed to satellite laser ranging:

• GRA: large prototype composed of 55 retroreflectors
• GRA-H: prototype composed of 7 hollow cube corner retroreflectors (HCCR)

Peltier Controllers

Cooling and heating of experiments and facilities in space is often performed by Peltier modules. Peltier controllers ranging from 25 W up to 250 W have been designed and flight qualified for different payloads.

EGSE - Electrical Ground Support Equipment

A wide range of different EGSE, MGSE, SCOE, have been designed and produced to assist functional and operational testing.