A.S.I. - Agenzia Spaziale Italiana - The road to Space goes through Italy.

FERMI (formerly called Glast, Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope) is a mission aimed at developing gamma-ray astronomy from the explorative phase to full maturity. It will be an astronomical telescope consisting in a Large Area Telescope (LAT) and a Burst Monitor. It is the result of a collaboration between astrophysicists and particle physicists. GLAST, with its perceptive ability, will allow the study of massive black holes in detail, as well as the merging of stars and neutrons and the flows of very hot gas, Superluminal Cosmic Source and other features of high energy sky. The launch, scheduled to occur in 2008, has an operational life between 5 to 10 years.

Italy's role is a prominent one and refers to the supply of the 18 LAT towers (each one of them made of 19 stages of sylicon and tungstenum), as well as the ASDC support in the archiving, anlaysis and distribution of the scientific data.