Avio

BPD, SNIA-BPD, FiatAvio & Avio

Avio is the end result of a long line of Italian company mergers, all producing rocket propulsion. It ended up prime contractor for the European P120C solid rocket motor, and is further developing the Space Rider space plane.

Bombrini Parodi-Delfino

In 1927 the Genoan Bombrini Parodi-Delfino (BPD) company started experimenting with chemical rockets and in the 1960s it started launching sounding rockets from the Salto di Quirra military firing range in Sardinia. This led to the development of the PAS apogee kick stage for the Europa II rocket by its Aeritalia subsidiary.

SNIA-BPD

In 1968 BPD merged into the SNIA Viscosa Company and formed SNIA-BPD. It developed seperation motors for the Ariane 1 launcher, and in 1985 formed the Europropulsion joint venture with SEP (later Snecma, later Safran, later ArianeGroup) to produce the EAP solid rocket boosters for the Ariane 5.

FiatAvio

In 1994 FiatAvio bought BPD from SNIA and merged with it. By 2001 it started the European Launch Vehicle (ELV) company with the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to develop the Vega launch vehicle, of which the P80 first stage casing was built by FiatAvio, with solid rocket motor manufactured by Europropulsion. It also developed its Zefiro solid-fuel rocket motors and AVUM upper stage, which uses the Ukrainian RD-843.

Avio

After Fiat sold FiatAvio to Carlyle and Finmeccanica in 2003 it changed its name to Avio. The aviation division was sold to General Electric in 2012 and the Avio space division ended up a joint venture between Space2 (72%) and Leonardo (28%). It is prime contractor for the Vega-C and Vega-E rockets and their upgraded P120C solid-fuel rocket motors, which will also be used as strap-on boosters on the Ariane 6.

In 2020 ESA named Avio co-prime contractor, with Thales Alenia Space, for the further development of the IXV into the Space Rider space plane.