San Marco C-1 satellite

Thanks to the San Marco project conceived and directed by Luigi Broglio of the University La Sapienza of Rome and senior officer of the Aeronautical Engineers, Italy was the third nation in the world, after the Soviet Union and the United States, to carry a satellite in orbit around the Earth. In 1964, just seven years after the launch of the first artificial satellite in history by the Soviets (Sputnik 1), the San Marco 1 was placed on its orbit around the equator, studying the atmosphere in a never-before explored area and achieving very important scientific and technological results. Four other satellites of the San Marco family were launched before 1988, and NASA provided the Scout carrier rocket in exchange for the collected data. Among the scientific parameters measured by these satellites were the density of the air at high altitudes, the temperature and pressure of the atmosphere, its chemical composition, the density of the ionosphere, the monitoring of solar radiation, the study of phenomena in the upper atmosphere and their influence on the Earth's climate. These data turned out to be very useful also for the design of vehicles that needed to come back from Space, including the Space Shuttle. This particular San Marco satellite, the third of the series, was launched from the eponymous Italian launch station (today Luigi Broglio Space Centre), located in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya. The station consisted of two platforms: one for the assembly and launch of the Scout rocket (San Marco Platform) and the other for the control of launch and orbit-placement operations (Santa Rita Platform). On the coast one can still find the staff quarters and the stations for receiving data from orbiting satellites.