4 Dec 2016

The Italian delegation headed by the minister of Education, Universities and Research Hon. Stefania Giannini has been very satisfied fora series of decision made in Lucerne

“We set a solid pillar for ESA of tomorrow. This is a long-term investment plan for European space-based science, technology and industry; this is the new space economy that merges science within the vision of future social and economic needs”. That was the comment of the President of Italian Space Agency (ASI) Roberto Battiston at the end of European Space Agency (ESA) Council Meeting at Ministerial Level held in Lucerne the 1 and 2 December. More specifically the Italian delegation headed by the minister of Education, Universities and Research Hon. Stefania Giannini has been very satisfied fora series of decision made in Lucerne:

- The completation in 2020 of ExoMars programme which will bring to the Red Planet an European rover with Italian drill to extract samples from various depths, down to a maximum of two metres, under the Martian surface to search for signs of life; key integration and testing steps will be done in France and Italy by the industrial prime Thales Alenia Space Italy.
- The extension of International Space Station (ISS) exploitation until 2024 with a new experimental program on the Europe’s Columbus laboratory module;

- The confirmation of EU launcher program with the VEGA Vega-C-Plus rocket and VEGA E the next evolution of liquid space propulsion with LOX-methane for the VEGA upper stage.
- The Space Rider program, a reusable spaceship based on the Italian-led ESA Intermediate Experimental Vehicle (IXV); Space Rider would be launched aboard the Vega rocket into Low Earth Orbit to perform microgravity experiments and then return to Earth to land. The Space Rider team will work within the VEGA-C Integrated Programme Team at ESRIN, Frascati, near Rome;

- An agreement made with ESA executives to strengthen Earth observation activities at the ESA ESRIN center including a focus on downstream activities for space economy applications;
- Doubling the investmenst in satellite TLC and its related leading-edge satcom products and services by ESA ARTES programme;

- The announcement that ESA Italian astronaut, Luca Parmitano, proposed by ESA to NASA as candidate for a long duration flight opportunity on the ISS in May 2019.

President Battiston underlined that “the decision to complete ExoMars enable the European scientific community to achieve and sustain excellence in science and technology while the extension of the launchers programme with VEGA C+ and the VEGA E program will strengthen European policy for autonomous space access”.
“The completion of ExoMars and the evolution of the European launchers strategy are two very important achievement of this Council Meeting”, said Minister Stefania Giannini who stressed the fact that Italy is still the third ESA contributor and how the leadership in the international space sector “originates from the high quality of Italian science, technology and industry”.