San Marco 1, also known as San Marco A, was the first Italian

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

. Built in-house by the Italian Space Research Commission (, CRS) on behalf of the National Research Council, it was the first of five as part of the Italian-US San Marco programme. The name of the spacecraft series comes from the San Marco platform, a Jackup barge used as an offshore launch pad for the main phase of the project. San Marco () is the

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, fa ...

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

, often depicted as aiding Venetian sailors.

Development

In 1961 the Italian government, led by Amintore Fanfani, approved a plan for the development of an indigenous satellite research programme that had earlier been proposed by the CRS. At the time only the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

had launched spacecraft into orbit and Italy lacked a suitable launcher and crews trained in firing orbital rockets. As a result, a cooperative plan was developed with the American space agency

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

who would provide the rockets and the launch crew training for Italians to operate them. The spacecraft was built by members of the CRS, a group of distinguished Italian scientists and engineers including

Edoardo Amaldi Edoardo Amaldi (5 September 1908 – 5 December 1989) was an Italian physicist. He coined the term "neutrino" in conversations with Enrico Fermi distinguishing it from the heavier "neutron". He has been described as "one of the leading nuclear p ...

, co-founder of major European scientific organisations including

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

and

ESRO The European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) was an international organisation founded by 10 European nations with the intention of jointly pursuing scientific research in space. It was founded in 1964. As an organisation ESRO was based on a ...

. The mission was principally a test-flight of a real satellite to gain experience before launches from Italy's own San Marco platform began, the last of 3 phases of the project.

Mission

The primary mission of the San Marco series was to conduct

ionospheric The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays ...

(upper-atmosphere) research. As a test satellite San Marco 1 contained relatively few experiments; * ''Atmosphere'', an Ion probe. * ''Electron-content Beacon'', a radio

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

to study ionospheric effects on long-range radio communication.

Launch

San Marco 1 was launched by an Italian crew using an American

Scout Scout may refer to: Youth movement *Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement ** Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom ** Scouts BSA, sect ...

rocket from

Wallops Flight Facility Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) is a rocket launch site on Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, United States, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and approximately north-northeast of Norfolk, VA, Norfolk. The facility is operated ...

, Virginia, US. Launched on 15 December 1964 at 20:24:00 UTC the satellite destructively re-entered the atmosphere on 13 September 1965.

References

External links

NASA NSSDC San Marco 1

Progetto San Marco Memorabilia
{{Orbital launches in 1964 Satellites formerly orbiting Earth Satellites of Italy Spacecraft launched in 1964 First artificial satellites of a country 1964 in Italy

Development

Mission

Launch

See also

References

External links