Today, Italy plays a vital role in space missions and activities worldwide, far more so than is often acknowledged. Italy boasts the second-greatest number of assets in orbit among European nations, and it is an essential contributor to European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA missions.

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Brian Berger is editor in chief of SpaceNews.com and the SpaceNews magazine. He joined SpaceNews.com in 1998, spending his first decade with the publication covering NASA. He was named senior staff writer in 2004, a position he held until being named...