The celebrations for National Space Day 2025, organized by the Permanent Representation of Italy in Paris, kicked off on December 3 with the conference \u201cEarth observation from space for the protection of our Planet,\u201d hosted at the prestigious University of Paris 1 Sorbonne Panth\u00e9on.<\/p>\n
In his opening remarks, Ambassador Luca Sabbatucci highlighted the significant growth of the Italian space sector and recalled the success of the ESA Ministerial Council held in Bremen the previous week under the Italian Presidency. He emphasized that \u201cthis will be remembered for the largest contribution in ESA\u2019s history, over \u20ac22 billion. Italy has confirmed its position among the top three contributors, consistently investing in all programs aimed at confirming and consolidating our country\u2019s role in the most strategic sectors of space activity. Among these, Earth observation is certainly one of our top priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
In her speech, Simonetta Cheli, Director of Earth Observation Programmes at ESA, emphasized the crucial role of satellite observations in helping address the challenges of climate change, environmental degradation, and the consequences for the weather, the economy, and our security. She noted that ESA operates a large fleet of satellites, both for its own programmes and in collaboration with other international bodies.\u00a0As a testament to Europe\u2019s commitment and excellence, Earth observation was the application sector most endorsed by ESA Member State Ministers at the last Ministerial Meeting.\u00a0Among the contributions from representatives of the Italian space ecosystem,<\/p>\n
Massimo Claudio Comparini, Managing Director of Leonardo\u2019s Space Division, highlighted, \u201cEarth observation is a strategic pillar for understanding the evolution of our planet and developing effective responses to major environmental and security challenges. Leonardo, together with the joint ventures Telespazio, Thales Alenia Space, and e-GEOS, thanks to its recognized leadership and ability to lead a national industrial supply chain of excellence, is making a decisive contribution to this goal, integrating advanced digital technologies\u2014from artificial intelligence to supercomputing\u2014to transform satellite data into knowledge, services, and value for the country and Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
A roundtable discussion followed, bringing together Francesco Longo, head of Earth observation for ASI; Milena Lerario, CEO of e-Geos (20% ASI, 80% Telespazio \u2013 Leonardo Group); Giampiero di Paolo, CEO of Thales Alenia Space Italia (67% Thales, 33% Leonardo); and Andrea Taramelli, professor at IUSS Pavia. They further highlighted how the close synergy between institutions, research, users, and industry optimizes the use of space data in the various contexts of climate and environmental crises, making Italy a leader in a strategic sector for our societies.<\/p>\n
The event was attended by a large and diverse audience, including diplomats, ESA and OECD officials, academics, industrialists, and students from the Sorbonne and Italian schools in Paris.\u00a0Also presented was the multimedia project \u201cAlong the Current,\u201d by Lorenzo Colantoni, which recounts his journey from the Azores to Svalbard to document the effects of climate change through photographs and satellite images. The project will be exhibited at the OECD headquarters and subsequently at the Sorbonne until the end of January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The celebrations for National Space Day 2025, organized by the Permanent Representation of Italy in Paris, kicked off on December 3 with the conference \u201cEarth observation from space for the protection of our Planet,\u201d hosted at the prestigious University of Paris 1 Sorbonne Panth\u00e9on. In his opening remarks, Ambassador Luca Sabbatucci highlighted the significant growth […]","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":162878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[35,9],"class_list":["post-162888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-retediplomatica","tag-diplomazia-scientifica","tag-europa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162891,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162888\/revisions\/162891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}