The Italian Space Agency and the company Argotec have released the first pictures taken by LICIACube, the only satellite involved in the NASA’s planetary defense mission, DART

23 September 2022

Here come the first, historical images captured by the LEIA and LUKE cameras aboard LICIACube, in the first Italian mission in the deep space, during the approach stages in preparation for the fly-by, when LICIACube will be the only witness of the impact between the DART probe and Dimorphos.


The evocative image taken by the LEIA camera aboard LICIACube, which reminds us of the historical “Earthrise” captured by William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission


The images depict a “growing” Earth (above) and the Pleiades (below).

The image captured by the LUKE onboard camera


A small, big record was born from these images. In fact, these are the first photos taken by an Italian satellite from 14 million kilometers away. An Italian mission had never travelled that far.

The ASI LICIACube satellite, created in the Argotec’s laboratories in Turin, is just at the beginning of its mission. In the next few days, it will get ready to conduct a maneuver that has never been attempted before. The ASI and Argotec engineers are ready for the final stages of this historical mission.

The LICIACube project is managed by the Italian Space Agency, with Argotec S.r.l. as industrial contractor and a scientific team from the National Institute of Astrophysics, the Polytechnic University of Milan, the University of Bologna, the Parthenope University of Naples and the “Nello Carrara” Institute of Applied Physics of the Italian National Research Council (CNR-IFAC).

‣ News

WEDNESDAY 15 MARCH 2023

ITALIAN PRESIDENT, SERGIO MATTARELLA, VISITS THE “LUIGI BROGLIO” SPACE CENTER IN MALINDI ‣

President Mattarella's first Official Visit to Kenya. Watch the video on AsiTV MORE...

WEDNESDAY 01 MARCH 2023

Agreement between the Italian Ministry of Culture and the Italian Space Agency for heritage study and protection ‣

“Eyes” in space to protect  our national cultural heritage. Cultural heritage data collection kicks off through the COSMO-SkyMed system developed by ASI in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense MORE...

TUESDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2022

ESA Ministerial Conference: Urso, agreement with France and Germany on the future of European launchers ‣

The Minister: this is how we build the European strategic autonomy MORE...

SATURDAY 19 NOVEMBER 2022

Artemis 1: ArgoMoon captured photos of the Earth and Moon ‣

NASA's Artemis 1 mission, carrying ArgoMoon, the satellite of the Italian Space Agency, developed and operated by Argotec, took off from NASA's Kennedy Space Centre on 16 November 2022 MORE...