The United States remain, besides ESA, the international partner with which privileged relations have been established, diversifying the fields of cooperation over time. It's worth mentioning the solid tradition of bilateral relations, dating back to as early as the 1960s, that the Italian Space Agency enjoys with NASA, the US space agency. Moreover the Italian Parliament ratified in 2016 the Agreement for Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes between Italy and the United States, an agreement signed at the Italian Embassy in Washington in 2013.
The Italian Space Agency has developed important relationships and agreements over time with other national agencies of great international stature and with the governments of several countries. As a way of example, we can mention: Roscosmos (Russian Federation), JAXA (Japan), CONAE (Argentina), ISA (Israel), Kenya (for the "Luigi Broglio" Space Base in Malindi), ISRO (India), CNSA, CAS and CMSA (China), UAE (United Arab Emirates), CSA (Canada), BSA (Brazil), AMS (Mexico), KARI (Korea), GISDTA (Thailand).
The complex legal and diplomatic architecture of bilateral and multilateral, inter-governmental and inter-institutional partnerships that presides over the International Space Station (ISS) project, where astronauts of the most diverse nationalities live together and together conduct many experiments, is perhaps the most extraordinary archetypal example of the effectiveness of such international relationships. Even today, the ISS constitutes one of the privileged multilateral working area in which to engage in fruitful dialogues and activate corridors of cross-cutting activities, industrial and technological development. This is an area in which Italy maintains a very prominent role, both for the human and scientific presence on board the ISS and for the building of about 50 percent of the infrastructure.
