Alta is continuing to pioneer the development of electric thrusters for spacecraft. The Italian company is currently building the largest electric propulsion (EP) satellite test chamber in Europe near Pisa. Systems testing will commence in August and Alta hopes to be fully operational by November. The chamber will be used to test EP thrusters of up to 50kW. The EP test chamber's first customer will be QinetiQ and its T6 thruster for the ESA Bepi Colombo mission to Mercury, planned for 2010 onwards.
Source: Flight Daily News