The Italian Space Agency (Italian: Agenzia Spaziale Italiana; ASI) is a government agency established in 1988 to fund, regulate and coordinate space exploration activities in Italy. The agency cooperates with numerous national and international entities who are active in aerospace research and technology. Nationally, the ASI is responsible for both drafting the National Aerospace Plan and ensuring it is carried out. To do this the agency operates as the owner/coordinator of a number of Italian space research agencies and assets such as CIRA as well as organising the calls and opportunities process for Italian industrial contractors on spaceflight projects. Internationally, the ASI provides Italy's delegation to the Council of the European Space Agency and to its subordinate bodies as well as representing the country's interests in foreign collaborations. ASI's main headquarters are located in Rome, Italy, and the agency also has direct control over two operational centres: the Centre for Space Geodesy (CGS) located in Matera in Italy, and its own spaceport, the Broglio Space Centre (formerly the San Marco Equatorial Range) on the coastal sublittoral of Kenya, currently used only as a communications ground station. One further balloon launch base located in Trapani was permanently closed in 2010. In 2020, ASI's annual revenues budget was approximately €2.0 billion and it directly employed around 200 workers.
History
Early Italian aerospace
Activities started officially in 1988 but the agency drew extensively on the work of earlier national organisations as well as the consolidated experience of the many Italian scientists that had been investigating space and astronautics since the end of the 19th century. Some of the most outstanding names in Italian space exploration since its inception were the following:
Giulio Costanzi (1875–1965), his 1914 writing of space navigation is considered the first Italian contribution to astronautics. Luigi Gussalli (1885–1950), astronautics pioneer since the 1920s, corresponded with international space scientists such as Oberth and Goddard. He invented a double-reaction jet engine, developed multi-stage rockets, suggested a Moon mission and solar radiation powered spaceships. Gaetano Arturo Crocco (1877-1968), aeronautics and astronautics pioneer, invented the first all-Italian liquid-fuelled combustion chamber and aided in the development of the gravity assist technique for use on planetary fly-by's by space probes. Luigi Crocco (1909-1986), son of Gaetano Arturo, an internationally renowned scientist in aerodynamics theory and jet propulsion. Aurelio Robotti (1913–1994), expert on rocket liquid fuels, father of the first Italian liquid-fuelled rocket, AR3. Luigi Broglio (1911-2001), the unanimously recognized father of Italian astronautics, sometimes referred to as the "Italian von Braun". Under his guidance Italy built and operated a satellite in orbit around the Earth and became the first country to deploy an equatorial launching pad, the San Marco, and to experiment successful launching from it. Carlo Buongiorno (1930–2011), Broglio's pupil and the first director general of ASI.
San Marco programme
Early Italian space efforts during the Space Race era were built around cooperation between the Italian Space Commission (a branch of the National Research Council) and NASA supported primarily by the Centro Ricerche Aerospaziali, the aerospace research group of the University of Rome La Sapienza. This plan, conceived by Luigi Broglio, led to the San Marco programme of Italian-built satellites beginning with the launch of Italy's first satellite, San Marco 1, from Wallops Island. The San Marco project since 1967 was focused on the launching of scientific satellites by Scout rockets from a mobile rigid platform located close to the equator. This station, composed of 3 oil platforms and two logistical support boats, was installed off the Kenya coast, close to the town of Malindi. Italy would later launch further satellites in the series (San Marco 2 in 1967, San Marco 3 in 1971, San Marco 4 in 1974 and San Marco D/L in 1988 ) using the American Scout rockets like the original, but from its own spaceport.
Co-operation and consolidation As one of the earliest countries to be engaged in space exploration, Italy became a founder and key partner in the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) and the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), established on 29 March and 14 June 1962 respectively. Both of these would later merge to form the European Space Agency on 30 April 1975. Further work would continue under the direction of the National Research Council including the launch of an indigenous telecoms/research satellite called SIRIO-1 in 1977. A planned follow-up mission SIRIO-2 was destroyed in the Ariane 1 L-05 launch failure. During the 1980s, it became clear of the need to rationalise and strengthen Italy's position in space research and so the decision was made to create the Italian Space Agency to further coordinate the nation's space activities.
Robotic exploration ASI's first large scientific satellite mission was BeppoSAX, developed in collaboration with the Netherlands and launched in 1996. Named after Giuseppe “Beppo” Occhialini, an important figure in Italian high-energy physics, the satellite was a mission to study the universe in the X-ray part of the spectrum. Following on from this ASI developed another high-energy astronomical satellite, AGILE for gamma ray astronomy, launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 2007. A particular innovation was the use of a single instrument to measure both Gamma rays and hard X-rays. ASI also has collaborated on many major international space exploration missions including;
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