Reasons, Objectives and Potential Impact of the Italian nrrp Investment for the «iride» Earth Observation Programme

On 15 December 1964, Italy launched the «San Marco 1» satellite, becoming the third country in the world to put its satellite into orbit and the first European country to take full responsibility for developing and launching a satellite. In the following decades, space has been a major area of research and investment for Italy, so much so that today, it is «one of the few nations in the world to have a complete product chain in the space sector» (Italian nrrp 2021). Innovation in the space sector and its convergence with emerging digital and computing technologies have led to a transformation of the sector, which has seen the development of satellite technologies and the data and services derived from them grow worldwide. Today, almost 60 years after the launch of the first satellite and in response to a global crisis, Italy is relaunching its space ambitions with the provision of a new constellation of Earth observation satellites called «iride», to be built entirely by national technological and industrial capacity and considered as the most important investment in the space sector included in the nrrps at European level. Case study. This article aims to reconstruct the decision-making process that led the Italian government to envisage this investment, analyse its potential impact, and identify its main challenges.