Aerospace and Defence collaboration crucial

This new collaboration between European and Japanese industry potentially opens up new perspectives for other future projects, which could also involve other fields considered essential for defence: the cyber domain and space defence.

Collaboration between Italy and Japan in the space sector is already solid, and is realised through bilateral agreements and partnerships between our Asi, the Italian Space Agency, and the Japanese Jaxa, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, as well as, obviously, between companies, universities and research institutes of the two countries. We can see the fruits of this both in the cooperation between the Italian Cosmo-SkyMed satellites and the Japanese Alos for disaster prevention, and in the common commitment, more than 20 years, for the International Space Station ISS, and also in various scientific missions, such as the Hayabusa2 mission, which collected samples from the asteroid Ryugu, on which Italian researchers also worked.

Our own space agency is very busy, we can say, surprising visitors to Expo 2025 in Osaka with a unique interactive multimedia installation where visitors will be able to examine and interact with 3D models of what Asi has made or helped to make: satellites, probes, scientific instruments. There will be the highlights of Asi, from Prisma to Cosmo-SkyMed for multispectral or radar observation of the Earth, and the Mph module, the first lunar shelter for astronauts working on our satellite, as envisaged by the Artemis programme.

Among other things, we will also see the Space Rider, a reusable shuttle-type spacecraft that is an Italian-led European project, entrusted to Thales Alenia Space and Avio.