Telespazio is a space systems services company, based in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. Telespazio was founded in 1961; however the company as it exists today was formed on July 1 2005 with the merger of the original Telespazio with the space services division of Alcatel

Alcatel

Alcatel Mobile Phones is a brand of mobile handsets. It was established in 2004 as a joint venture between Alcatel-Lucent of France and TCL Communication of China....

. The company is owned by Finmeccanica

Finmeccanica

Finmeccanica S.p.A. is an Italian conglomerate. Finmeccanica is the second largest industrial group and the largest of the hi-tech industrial groups based in Italy. It works in the fields of defence, aerospace, security, automation, transport and energy...

 (67%) and Alcatel (33%).

History

The creation of the company was concurrent with the creation of Alcatel Alenia Space. This too was a merger of Alcatel and Finmeccanica businesses (Alcatel Space and Alenia Spazio respectively).

On April 5 2006, Alcatel agreed to sell its share of Telespazio (and its 67% share of Alcatel Alenia Space) to Thales Group

Thales Group

The Thales Group is a French electronics company delivering information systems and services for the aerospace, defense, transportation and security markets...

. http://www.alcatel.com/vpr/?body=http://www.home.alcatel.com/vpr/vpr.nsf/DateKey/05042006uk

On September 20th 2011, a strike in the company leads to the launch report of Ariane 5. http://www.arianespace.com/news-press-release/2011/news-press-releases-fr-11/9-20-2011-va204-launch-delay-FR.pdf

In the UK, Telespazio's presence is through Vega space

Vega space

VEGA Space Ltd is a Space company, based in Hertfordshire, UK. Founded in 1978 by a small group of engineers at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, VEGA now works with Space agencies, satellite operators and manufacturers around the world...

.