Argotec has entrusted CIRA with the mechanical shock qualification tests for the 12U XL CubeSat of the HENON mission.

CIRA, through its Space Qualification Center, has initiated a new collaboration with Argotec for the execution of pyro-shock qualification tests on the thermo-structural model (STM) of the 12U XL class CubeSat for the HENON mission. The test campaign was preceded by a preliminary tuning phase on a satellite dummy, aimed at calibrating the parameters of the test bench. Subsequently, qualification tests with impulsive excitation were carried out along the three orthogonal axes. The required mechanical shock levels were achieved fully in compliance with the tolerances specified by the ECSS standard.

Argotec is an Italian company and a leader in the space sector, founded in 2008 in Turin, with additional offices in the USA (California and Florida). The company excels in the design, production, and operations of small satellites and has achieved world-firsts, being the only entity with two operational satellites simultaneously in deep space (LICIACube for NASA’s DART mission and ArgoMoon for NASA Artemis I).

HENON (HEliospheric pioNeer for sOlar and iNterplanetary Threats Defence) is a 12U CubeSat mission designed and built by Argotec for the European Space Agency (ESA) under its General Support Technology Programme (GSTP). The Principal Investigator of the mission is INAF, and the program falls within ESA’s GSTP – “Fly” element – thanks to funding from the Italian Space Agency (ASI) through the ALCOR program, along with contributions from the United Kingdom and Finland. HENON will travel to a distance of about 25 million kilometers and will be the first CubeSat to operate in a Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO) in the Sun–Earth system, with the goal of performing near real-time monitoring of Space Weather, that is, the environmental conditions in near-Earth space and throughout the solar system, primarily driven by solar activity.

This synergy between Argotec’s private innovation—Italy’s leading company in the development of CubeSat and Smallsat platforms for scientific missions and services (Earth observation, space weather, etc.) in both low Earth orbit and deep space—and CIRA’s public expertise confirms Italy’s role as a European hub for the development and qualification of advanced space platforms.