Telespazio’s “Piero Fanti” space Centre in Fucino (L’Aquila) has been active since 1963 and today, with its 170 antennas and 370,000 square metres, it is recognized as the first and most important teleport in the world for civilian use.
The Fucino space Centre carries out in-orbit satellite control, space mission management and telecommunications, television and multimedia services. Operational logistics and field services are active in support to the services provided. It employs 250 workers including engineers, specialist technicians and operational staff.
Fucino hosts the Control Centre and the Mission Centre of the COSMO-SkyMed Earth observation satellite constellation and one of the two Control Centres that manage Galileo, the European satellite positioning and navigation system.
The Italian Galileo Control Centre (GCC-I) is an infrastructure of 6.000 square metres that ensures processing and distribution of the navigation signal to satellites and continuous control of the quality of service delivered to end users. This Centre also manages the Galileo Data Dissemination Network (GDDN) which includes about fifty ground stations.