ASI | Agenzia Spaziale Italiana

You need means of transportation to move on Earth. You need means of transportation to move in space. Italy is at the forefront, both on Earth and in space.

Today, through the ASI and the Italian industry, Italy carries on a long and important research tradition in the field of space propulsion. The primary mission pursued by the ASI in the industry of space transportation aims at supporting the development and manufacturing of transportation systems which contribute to the strategic independency of the European access to space. Space transportation systems are complex by nature, and they require huge manufacturing and production capacities and the operational availability of targeted ground-based infrastructure. Because of this, they are manufactured by the ASI mainly through a European-level cooperation, within the ESA, and an international-level cooperation (with the Russian partners, in particular), accompanied by a strongly synergic and complementary national activity.

‣ ALL THE MISSIONS

Present

ARIANE ‣

The Ariane programme refers to a set of launchers designed by the Arianespace consortium on behalf of the ESA.

VEGA C ‣

Vega C is the evolution of the current Vega launcher and is designed to increase its payload up to 2200 kg in low terrestrial orbit

VEGA ‣

Vega is a project which was born in Italy and was subsequently adopted by the ESA. It’s a launcher which is capable of carrying a mass payload between 300 and 1500 kilograms

Future

SPACE RIDER ‣

The Space Rider is a project of automated space vehicle, which can be reused for unmanned re-entry and is currently being studied by the ESA and mainly funded by Italy

ALTEC-VIRGIN GALACTIC ‣

The Altec-Virgin Galactic agreement involves the manufacturing of an Italian spaceport in the area of Taranto-Grottaglie, for suborbital flight experiments

ARIANE 6 ‣

Ariane 6, in its different Ariane 62 and 64 configurations, is a new launcher which will debut in 2020 and will replace Ariane 5 in 2023

Past

IRIS ‣

Iris is the Italian propulsion system which, in 1992, orbited the Lageos-2 satellite through the Space Shuttle Columbia

ATV ‣

Atv was a space vehicle developed by the ESA, whose goal was carrying supplies to the International Space Station and bring the station back to the right orbit.

IXV ‣

IXV (Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle) is an experimental space vehicle, whose mission consists of assessing the ability to carry out a controlled atmospheric re-entry from a low terrestrial orbit