by Zeno Saracino
19.01.2024. – 14.17 – The scenario of space exploration, after several decades of stagnation or of bombastic statements denied by world geopolitics, seems to know a gradual revival. Is discussed the frontier of space, the exploration of other planets and the Earth’s orbit as a new horizon in which to invest. The will to reach Mars was, in the late nineties and early two thousand, a fixed point of the programs of the American presidents, particularly of Bush junior. However, the ‘war on terror’ had hijacked the space dreams, had covered them up between Iraq and Afghanistan. But they were government projects, led by NASA. Today the scenario is multinational and with a mixture of public and private less inclined to futuristic prophecies about the future and more to the economic return offered by the space economy. China, United States and, although the western ostracism, Russia. But many big private companies have long overlooked the space scene. The European Union itself begins to play an independent role. Less valet of the USA and more autonomous agent. In this contest fits Italy as much as Friuli Venezia Giulia, particularly as regards Trieste and Gorizia.
An interview, by the newspaper Formiche, with the colonel of the Air Force Walter Villadei shows the mutations in a fast growing sector, although of little interest to the population, especially Italian. The role of the private sector seems ‘to push’ the public. In the past decade it was believed that it would supplant governments in space exploration. Nowadays the role of minor and/or commercial tasks is delegated to the private sector, arrogating instead to state action the highest or the most delicate mission. From space security, to scientific research, to the development of technologies in orbit.
Within the EU, Villanova has been Italian delegate to the European Commission since 2014 for the EU space program Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST). It played an important role, whereas the goal of the SST was to ensure the security of the European space infrastructure. The program, in the general disinterest of the public, is knowing a remarkable evolution. Will become the STM, that is the Space traffic management. It will be the task of the EU to try to manage the large amount of debris in orbit, by trying to establish an operational framework, especially considering the danger to satellites and ‘human’ missions. The SST, in its turn, has become in the last period SDA, that is Space domain awareness, loading the name of not only technical, but also geopolitical and military aspects.
Turning to the Italian situation, the Air Force has recently opened a new representation in Houston with the tasks of discussing the modality of access to the space of private commercial flights. There are already cooperation agreements with important entities such as Thales Alenia Space Italia, with the National Research Council and with the Emilia-Romagna region. In the general the Government would like to encourage the birth and the development of companies and active starts up within the space economy, capable of acting on an international scale.
And what about the FVG? In Trieste the space economy has always found listening in the shadow of University of Trieste. In fact, the company PicoSaTs was born as a project of UniTS, known for its pioneering role in microsatellites. There are, in total, 20 high level regional realities engaged in the aerospace sector. The Promoter Committee of the Aerospace Technology Cluster Alpe Adria (CT3A) has repeatedly stressed a possible role by Gorizia, taking advantage of the airport ‘Duchi d’Aosta’. An aerospace district that have collected the interest of many scientific and economic realities, among which the SISSA, the Science Park Area, the Elettra Sincrotrone, the triestine centres of the Institutions of Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics and the Port Authority of Trieste. From the national point of view there had been interest from Leonardo and Intesa San Paolo.
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