by Kaye Dee

The biggest news in space this month is that Italy has joined the Space Race, with the launch of its first satellite San Marco 1. Named in honour of Saint Mark the Evangelist, the patron saint of Venice and protector of Venetian sailors, the San Marco launch is the first mission in a programme that began in 1961.

The Italian von Braun

The San Marco satellite programme is the brainchild of Luigo Broglio, an Italian military officer and aerospace engineer who’s already earned himself the nickname “the Italian von Braun”. Broglio established the Salto di Quirra missile test range on Sardinia in 1956, which is now also being used to launch British Skylark rockets (like those being used for upper atmosphere research at Woomera) for the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO). ESRO is the sister program to ELDO (see June entry), developing the satellites that will fly on ELDO’s Europa rockets. Convinced by Italian physicist Prof. Edoardo Amaldi (a co-founder of ESRO) that Italy should have its own space program, Broglio persuaded the Italian Prime Minister in early 1961 that Italy should develop a national satellite program and its own satellite launching facility.

Luigi Broglio was both an officer in the Italian Air Force and the Dean of Aerospace Engineering at La Sapienza University

As it happened, the international Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) was meeting in Florence in April that year, so Broglio took the opportunity of discussing with NASA Italy’s participation in the same program that has already enabled Canada and Britain to launch their satellites on NASA rockets (see September entry)

San Marco Approved

The Italian Government approved the San Marco programme in October 1961 with the task of building the San Marco satellites allocated to the Commissione per le Ricerche Spaziali (CRS), or Commission for Space Research. This group of distinguished Italian scientists and engineers was initially formed by Amaldi and Broglio within the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), the Italian National Research Council, to canvass support for an Italian space programme.

A formal Memorandum of Understanding between the CRS (represented by Broglio) and NASA (represented by Deputy Administrator Hugh Dryden) was signed on 31 May 1962. Under this MOU, the United States agreed to provide Scout rockets to Italy and train the Italian launch crew, while Italy developed its satellites and built a national launch facility. NASA also agreed to provide two sub-orbital test flights from its Wallops island launch facility, using Shotput sounding rockets, so that the Italian launch crew could gain experience in launch procedures and the CRS could test instruments for the first satellite. These two test flights took place in 1963.

A philatelic cover issued to mark the first of the two San Marco Shotput test flights in 1963

Italy decided that its national launch facility would be a modified mobile oil rig platform, that would be towed to an equatorial location off the coast of Kenya. This would enable the Scout rockets to be fired to the east and take advantage of the boost provided by the Earth’s rotation. The Italian oil company Eni was contracted to provide the mobile launch platform, but the construction has been delayed and the offshore facility will not be ready until sometime next year.

Liftoff for San Marco 1

Because of the delays with the launch platform development, San Marco 1 (also known as San Marco A) was fired from Wallops Island as a training exercise for the Italian launch crew ahead of future launches in the Indian Ocean, with the successful launch taking place on 15 December (16 December here in Australia).

San Marco 1 on the launchpad. As a joint US-Italian project, the Scout carries the legends "United States" and "Italia"

The battery-powered satellite sat directly on top of the Scout’s fourth stage, with both the rocket motor and satellite contained within the fairing. The spherical satellite has a total mass of 254 lbs. and a diameter of 26 in. Four antennas are spaced around the equator of the satellite, which is painted longitudinally in black and white for thermal control.

Exterior view of San Marco 1, showing its thermal-regulation colour scheme

The main purpose of the San Marco programme is to conduct ionospheric research. However, being essentially a test satellite, San Marco 1 is only carrying a few experiments. Its major scientific instrument is the “Broglio scale”, which is designed to measure the density of the atmosphere at very high altitudes, although lower than the typical orbital altitudes used by other satellites. The CRS hopes that San Marco 1 and future missions will help to create a more precise model of the upper atmosphere in the low orbit environment. This should improve the re-entry predictions for both spacecraft and missiles. San Marco 1’s other main instrument is a radio transmitter, intended to study ionospheric effects on long-range radio communication. Undoubtedly, the future satellites in the series will be more sophisticated.

Cutaway view of San Marco 1

An interesting aspect of San Marco 1’s launch is that, although it took place in the US, the launch was handled by a NASA-trained Italian launch crew. This places Italy in a unique situation: unlike Canada and Britain, which provided their first satellites to NASA for launch on American rockets by American personnel, Italy effectively launched its own satellite. In fact, Italy now considers itself the third country in the world to operate its own satellite, after the Soviet Union and the United States.

Thanks to Uncle Ernie the stamp collector, here is one of the new launch covers for San Marco 1, highlighting its unique status as an Italian-launched satellite

San Marco 2 is scheduled to launch next year, and I’ll look forward to seeing Italy launch that satellite from its new national facility, which should be in place in Kenya by then.

Another Explorer in Orbit

As I write this, I’m delighted to report that another Explorer satellite has just been confirmed as safely in orbit! NASA is certainly committed to this programme, with such a regular series of satellites designed for understanding the space environment surrounding the Earth (see September entry). Explorer 26 is the latest probe in the series, designed to measure the Earth’s magnetic field and trapped high energy particles within it.

Explorer 26 is similar in design to its predecessors in the Energetic Particle Explorer series.

Explorer 26, also known as Energetic Particle Explorer (EPE)-D and S-3C, is a spin-stabilised, solar-cell powered satellite, weighing 101 lbs and carrying five experiments. Four of these instruments — the Solid-State Electron Detector, Omnidirectional and Unidirectional Electron and Proton Fluxes, Fluxgate Magnetometers and Proton-Electron Scintillation Detector — are designed for geomagnetic and high energy particle studies. The fifth experiment, the Solar Cell Damage experiment, is designed to quantify the degradation in solar cell performance due to radiation and evaluate the effectiveness of glass shields at preventing this degradation. I find this experiment particularly interesting, as solar cells are becoming increasingly used on satellites to provide power supplies that will last much longer than batteries.

The Energetic Particle Explorer series began in 1961 with Explorer 12 (EPE-A), launched in August 1961. All the satellites in the series so far have had the same basic design, but with progressively heavier instrumentation weight. They have all been launched from Cape Canaveral by Thor Delta vehicles.

Dreams for Down Under

I'm envious that Italy has been able to get its own space programme underway, while we here in Australia seem to have no immediate prospect of launching a national satellite. But I shouldn't complain too much: 1964 has been a very exciting year for space activities Down Under, with the ELDO programme finally underway. I’m looking forward to even more significant space achievements in 1965!

NASA characterised the first phase of the San Marco program as a joint US-Italian project. Both flags were flown at Wallops Island during the Shotput test and the San Marco 1 launch

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