C-41 was a two-stage Italian-built rocket, 75 kg (165 lb) in weight, part of a program to develop probe carrying

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

s to study outer atmosphere. It was first launched on July 9, 1960, from the

Salto di Quirra Salto di Quirra is a restricted weapons testing range and rocket launch site near Perdasdefogu on the island of Sardinia. It is the largest military range in Italy, composed of 12,000 hectares of land owned by the Ministry of Defence (Italy), Ital ...

range. The project was managed by Lt.Col. Metallo (DGAM—Direzione Generali Armi e Munizioni) and Engineer Angeloni ( SISPRE—Societa Italiana Sviluppo Propulsione a Reazione (Italian Society of Studies on Jet Propulsion)).
To cut costs the C-41 recycled parts of existing weaponry. The first stage was powered by a cluster of four jets featuring interconnected combustion chambers. The payload carrying second stage was powered by a single engine of the same type. On the whole six C-41 were launched successfully.
Successive development of probe carrying rockets was the task of the newly formed Space Research Committee within the CNR (Italian National Research Institution). The committee's president was the founder of Italian astronautics,

Luigi Broglio Luigi Broglio (11 November 1911 – 14 January 2001), was an Italian aerospace engineer, airforce lieutenant colonel and dean of the school of aeronautical engineering at the University of Rome La Sapienza. Known as "the Italian von Braun", he i ...

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*L’Aeronautica Militare e lo spazio dagli albori agli albori agli anni ’70, Rivista Aeronautica 6/2003 *AA.VV:, Le attività spaziali italiane dal dopoguerra all’istituzione dell’Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, Agenzia Spaziale Europea Sounding rockets of Italy {{rocket-stub

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