Infrastructure and Clean Room works on Hellenic Assembly Integration & Testing Facility nearing completion with support from ESA

21 Dec 2025

Civil and structural work has been completed on the Hellenic Assembly, Integration and Testing Facility (HAITF), implemented by ESA Connectivity and Secure Communications in collaboration with the Hellenic Aerospace Industry S.A. (HAI) on behalf of the Hellenic Government. This milestone comes after the successful launches for the Greek Satellite Connectivity Programme on Transporter-15 and puts the facility on track for its commissioning and acceptance, with operational target by the second quarter of 2026.

The infrastructure that will house the brand-new facility has been completed to the rigorous specifications of satellite Assembly, Integration and Testing (AIT) activities, with support from the main subcontractor, BCT Group. The AIT facility’s spatial configuration and structure have been designed to support the demanding operational requirements of satellite assembly, with purpose-built floors, load-bearing structures and overhead cranes. Furthermore, the room partitions, finishes, interfaces, systems & utility networks for the environmental controls constituting the ISO 8-compliant cleanroom have also been installed. In the coming weeks, installation of the remaining lighting, electrical distribution, and grounding infrastructure will proceed at pace to bring the cleanroom to operational standards.

This Hellenic AIT facility is being built to further support the role of Greece in the European space landscape. The HAITF will boost the design and manufacture of the next generation of Greek satellites, from subsystem integration to environmental qualification. The facility’s core capabilities will be enabled by two thermal vacuum chambers (TVAC) provided by Angelantoni Test Technologies, and a 125kN-rated Vibration Test System (shaker) provided by the IMV Corporation. Highlighting the rapid progress of development of the facility, IMV Corporation’s shaker system successfully passed its Factory Acceptance Stage in November 2025, validating its performance within HAITF’s strict specification requirements. Both TVAC and shaker components are expected to be installed in February 2026.

As part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0”, the Hellenic AIT facility project is funded by the European Union through the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and implemented by ESA on behalf of the Greek Ministry of Digital Governance. The HAITF project was launched in November 2023 with the objective to design, build, and operate a fully functional Assembly, Integration and Testing infrastructure at HAI’s site in Schimatari. The implementation began in early 2025, targeting full installation by the first half of 2026, with site acceptance tests scheduled for no earlier than March 2026. The timeline demonstrates the momentum of the programme towards delivering modern high-performance facilities supporting advanced AIT capabilities for the Greek space industry.

“2025 has counted milestone after milestone for the Greek Connectivity Programme,” said Frédéric Rouesnel, Greek Connectivity RRF Project Manager at ESA’s Connectivity and Secure Communications. “The completion of the building housing the brand-new Hellenic AIT facility will boost Greece’s role in the European space landscape and open the doors for talent and expertise to grow locally with new jobs and projects throughout the value chain. Already, HAITF has shown Greece’s expertise to develop and produce highly rated facilities to enable  its growing role in the end-to-end European industrial resilience, strategic autonomy, collaboration and know-how.”