The initiative involves a selected number of organizations and companies worldwide that, on a voluntary basis, make their expertise and infrastructures available to contribute to the monitoring of radio signals transmitted by the Orion spacecraft during its journey into deep space.
In this context, Telespazio joined the initiative by offering its contribution and, following NASA’s selection process, was identified to take part in the tracking activities, which will be carried out through the infrastructures and expertise of the Fucino Space Centre, one of the world’s leading civilian satellite communications hubs.
Participation in the Artemis II mission is part of a historical continuity that has seen the Fucino Space Centre involved in key milestones of lunar exploration: in 1969, the television images of the historic Apollo 11 Moon landing were received and retransmitted to Italy from this very site.
Today, Telespazio’s most important space centre supports activities related to NASA’s Artemis program, while the company also acts as prime contractor for ESA’s MOONLIGHT program, which will deploy a lunar satellite constellation to provide communications and navigation services. Fucino also hosts one of the two Control Centres that manage Galileo, the European satellite positioning and navigation system.