Sirio satellite

The SIRIO (an acronym for Satellite Italiano di Ricerca Industriale e Operativa) was an experimental artificial satellite for telecommunications. Designed and built in Italy, it was launched on 26 August 1977 from the American base at Cape Canaveral. The experiments, which were designed at the Politecnico di Milano, along with the instruments for carrying them out, have allowed us to better understand the effects of weather conditions on the propagation of the ultra high and very high frequency radio waves used in telephone communications and television broadcasting, and thereby broaden their possibilities. The SIRIO was a program by the CNR (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche) and was constructed by the company CIA (Compagnia Industriale Aerospaziale). The ground station was produced and managed by Telespazio. Designed for a service life of two years, the SIRIO remained in use for about eight years, until 1985, with experimentations conducted also by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, the United States, and China. This model is exactly equal to the one that was launched into space: it was used for ground verification of the instrumentation Installed on board the satellite that was sent into orbit.