May 02, 2016

It was 30 April 1996 when, from the NASA base in Cape Canaveral, the SAX, Satellite per Astronomia a raggi X(Satellite for X-ray Astronomy), was launched into orbit. The SAX was later renamed BeppoSAX in honour of the astronomer Giuseppe “Beppo” Occhialini from Milan. Now, twenty years after the beginning of the mission, the Italian Space Agency has decided to commemorate the successes of the satellite, with a dedicated event in which all the main people in charge of the mission took part.
“I have followed the mission from the beginning. This very complex organization that led us - on 28 February 1997 - to identify the first delayed emission of a gamma-ray burst - said Enrico Costa a member of the Board of Directors of ASI (Italian Space Agency) - and we were thus able to resolve a 25-year-old mystery: the identification of bursts, the nature of their energy and what the origin of this explosion might be.”

The satellite, which is the result of collaboration between ASI and its Dutch counterpart, had scientific repercussions of an extremely high level. In fact, in the study of deep space, BeppoSAX was the first to provide an answer to the mysterious celestial phenomena of gamma-ray bursts. The satellite had an ace in the hole - its particularly wide spectral coverage that allowed it to observe a great variety of cosmic phenomena like compact galactic sources, galaxy clusters, supernova remnants, stars and gamma-ray bursts.
“The potential manifested by BeppoSAX has paid off in the scientific and industrial field - commented Barbara Negri head of the Exploration and Observation of the Universe unit at ASI - and has highlighted the merits of Italian industry and the scientific community, which are now in demand internationally.”

Initially scheduled to continue in operation until 1998, the satellite has by far exceeded the scientific community's expectations, remaining active for seven years, until 29 April 2003, when it was made to fall into the Pacific Ocean. Even in this, it was unusual: BeppoSAX was the first Italian satellite (the only one to date) that reentered the atmosphere in need of rigorous checks. In fact, several parts built in titanium risked not being consumed during reentry and the loss of the gyroscopes prevented a controlled reentry. A crisis unit was established at Italy's Civil Protection department that, with ASI in coordination with CNUCE (National University Centre of Electronic Calculation) in Pisa and the American NORAD, was able to monitor the fall and thereby avoid possible accidents.

But what was even more surprising than its duration was the scientific impact of its mission: already in 2002, just before it ended its operational life, there were over 1500 scientific publications based on the data collected by the satellite.
A prominent role also for Italian industry in the BeppoSAX mission, through Finmeccanica. Thales Alenia Space, as first contractor on behalf of the Italian Space Agency, was responsible for the project, for implementing the launch of the first astrophysics satellite built in Italy. Thales Alenia Space was also responsible for the development of important on-board subsystems and made a significant contribution to the mission's scientific load, by supplying the instruments for the detection of x-rays.

Telespazio was responsible for the operational management of the satellite throughout the duration of the mission, from the moment of its launch into orbit until the end of its operational life. Furthermore, Telespazio was also responsible for activities at the Station of Malindi, in Kenya, for relaunching the telemetering and telecontrol data of BeppoSAX.
Finmeccanica also provided a crucial contribution to the success of the mission, by implementing the platform's power source subsystem, which consisted of batteries and units of electronic conditioning of the electrical energy, star sensors for attitude control of the satellite and the alignment mechanisms of several parts of the telescope.