San Marco 1

San Marco 1 was the first Italian satellite. It was launched on 15 December 1964, under a US- Italian cooperation of Wallops Iceland in the USA. The launch vehicle was provided by NASA, the launch team of the Italian Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CRS ). It was the first to be built in Western Europe satellites, as well as the first NASA launch with foreign personnel.

San Marco 1 was the study of the atmosphere density. Since the satellite was almost spherical, its air resistance depended only on the density of the atmosphere. From train observations could thus infer the density at different altitudes.

Four additional satellites of this program were started by the Italian San Marco platform off the coast of Kenya.