{"id":51532,"date":"2025-08-08T00:35:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T00:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/51532\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T00:35:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T00:35:07","slug":"italy-signs-agreement-with-spacex-for-starship-mars-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/51532\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy Signs Agreement with SpaceX for Starship Mars Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Italy-Signs-Agreement-with-SpaceX-for-Starship-Mars-Mission.webp.webp\" alt=\"In a \u201cfirst-of-its-kind\u201d deal, ASI has signed an agreement with SpaceX to carry Italian payloads to the surface of Mars aboard a Starship rocket.\" width=\"800\" height=\"500\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4941 lazyload\"  data- style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 800px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 800\/500;\"\/>Credit: SpaceX<\/p>\n<p>The Italian space agency, ASI, has signed an agreement with SpaceX for an uncrewed mission to Mars aboard one of the company\u2019s Starship rockets.<\/p>\n<p>Announced on 7 August, the agreement includes provisions for several payloads, including a plant growth experiment, a radiation sensor, and a meteorological monitoring station. ASI expects to collect data not only during the mission\u2019s six-month interplanetary cruise but also throughout its time on the Martian surface.<\/p>\n<p>In a social media update, ASI President Teodoro Valente declared, \u201cItaly is going to Mars!\u201d He described the agreement as a \u201cfirst-of-its-kind\u201d and said it affirmed the country\u2019s continued commitment to \u201clead in space exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell was equally enthusiastic about the agreement, stating, \u201cGet on board! We are going to Mars! SpaceX is now offering Starship services to the Red Planet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To date, SpaceX has not launched any commercial payloads to orbit aboard a Starship rocket, let alone to another planet. Development of the vehicle is still underway, including several test flights of full-scale prototypes of the Starship upper stage and Super Heavy booster. In March, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk stated that the company is targeting the end of next year for Starship\u2019s first mission to Mars.<\/p>\n<p>While Italy\u2019s deal with SpaceX bypasses the European Space Agency, the country has also played a major role in ESA\u2019s own efforts to explore the surface of the Red Planet. The agency is currently targeting a 2028 launch for its <a href=\"https:\/\/europeanspaceflight.com\/arianegroup-receives-heat-shield-mock-up-for-exomars-mission\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ExoMars mission<\/a>, which will deliver the Rosalind Franklin rover to Mars. Once on the surface, the rover will drill to a depth of two metres in search of preserved organic material.<\/p>\n<p>Italy is the single largest contributor to the ExoMars mission, with the United Kingdom being the second largest. While Italy has not disclosed specific figures, it initially agreed to cover around 40 percent of the mission\u2019s cost when ESA Member States first committed funding in 2007.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: SpaceX The Italian space agency, ASI, has signed an agreement with SpaceX for an uncrewed mission to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[28486,90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-51532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-asi","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-space","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}