Tatuus iMagazine

39 Space harness Tatuus and Sabelt have a longstanding partnership for safety equipment. Starting from motorsports, the Italian company was even able to cross the borders… of planet earth! W What do NASA, the US Space Agency, and Tatuus have in common? The use of Sabelt technology, as they both rely on the safety equipment produced by the world‐renown Italian Company. Massimiliano Marsiaj, vice president of the company founded in 1972 by his father Giorgio and his uncle Piero, tells us more about it. Based in Moncalieri, near Turin, Sabelt is about to turn 50 years old. Their journey started from motor racing which once again emerged as an incubator of innovations that were successfully applied to other fields. Il decollo di Sabelt It's safe to say that Sabelt has skyrocketed in terms of reaching automotive and motorsports excellence. Ferrari, McLaren, Maserati, Aston Martin, Abarth and Alpine are only an example of the company's prestigious customers, for safety equipment and (above all) car seats. Then, the company took off. Quite literally. «We developed aviation belts, like the 4‐point belts for flight attendants and stewards. We got those orders thanks to the know‐how gathered from working in motorsport competition", explains Marsiaj. The technological transfer, which he points as vital, even brought them to space exploration. It sounds incredible, but it's not science fiction. "We started to produce components for the NASA, specifically for the modules that carry materials and supplies to the space station. We designed the cargo nets that contain the objects shipped into orbit. Previously, NASA used traditional systems, which weighed 200 kilograms. Our systems are only half of it, 100 kgs, so they could recover 100 kg of load for each launch. This is no small thing when every kilogram shipped into space costs around $50,000! Thanks to our contribution, NASA can load 5 million dollars of extra goods for every mission!». by Jacopo Rubino