Historically, Sardinia has been involved in a large number of aerospace initiatives, starting from the launch of the first balloon probes for the study of cosmic rays in the 1950s, and the experimental launches in the upper atmosphere, which in the 1960s sanctioned Italy's entry into the Aerospace Club.
Subsequently, local infrastructures have always played a role in the testing of space launchers, until the most recent years, when the Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) was inaugurated in 2013 and the constitution of the Aerospace District of Sardinia (DASS) materialized in October of the same year.
CRS4, now a member of the DASS, joins this development process, with its spatial data modeling and management capabilities, and with the COSMIC project, funded by the Italian Space Agency, which since 2009 has started a development chain of new technologies for human space exploration.
Aerospace today is definitely one of the most technologically intensive sectors, deeply connected with leading sectors such as: materials technologies, telecommunications, autonomous navigation systems, robotics and human-machine interfaces in extreme conditions.
Developments in these sectors, coupled with enormous advances in digital technologies, are causing a radical transformation even in many of the traditional sectors, seemingly far from the domain of aerospace.
The Digital Technologies for Aerospace working group already has significant know-how on the application of digital technologies to a broad spectrum of application domains.
In applying this knowledge to the aerospace domain, it is proposed both to give continuity to the most challenging objectives set at the time of the COSMIC project, and to act as a guide for the development of new projects, specifically oriented to practical effects on the territory, with cross-transfer of skills with DASS members and other realities of interest, and targeted transfer of innovation to the enabling sectors of the local economic system.
