Route to Mars: Asi to Collaborate with SpaceX

The Italian Space Agency has signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s company to bring scientific experiments all the way to the surface of the Red Planet. Just a few years ago, this would have been possible only through an agreement between public space agencies.

BY EMILIO COZZI e MATTEO MARINI

Italy will fly to Mars thanks to SpaceX’s vehicles. The president of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), Teodoro Valente, announced last week the agreement with Elon Musk’s company to load experiments onto the “first missions departing for the Red Planet.” The chosen vehicle will be Starship, which SpaceX is (struggling) to develop to return astronauts to the Moon, but whose ultimate goal is precisely the Martian landing.

The payloads, the experiments, will be varied. This is an important opportunity, because securing a ride to Mars is nothing like reaching Earth orbit or the Moon. The Red Planet is at least six months’ cruise away. All the more so because the instruments will be carried right down to its rusty surface. “The payloads will include, among others, an experiment on plant growth, a weather monitoring station, and a radiation sensor.” The aim: to gather scientific data during the interplanetary flight phase and then on the Martian surface, the Agency wrote in the statement announcing the agreement.

The first Starship, and probably the second as well, will head to Mars without a crew (carrying people will require testing the system and ensuring its reliability, minimizing risks). Instead, there will be a load of experiments that, in the case of the Italian ones, could help prepare for the arrival of astronauts in the flesh (it is not out of the question, in fact, that Elon Musk might first send Optimus, the humanoid robot developed by Tesla).
First of all, to study radiation intensity during the journey, six months away from the protection of Earth’s magnetic field, and then on the Martian surface, which offers no shield either, having lost its magnetic field billions of years ago.
Valuable information could come from the weather sensors and the plant-growing experiment, with less suspense, at least at the beginning, than the stranded Mark Watney from Andy Weir’s brilliant The Martian.

Public and private

For now, no details are known about the agreement or the costs of sending the instruments so far. Nothing is known either about the timeline or the parties involved: that is, who will actually build them, and which institutions, universities, and research centers will take part.
The interesting thing, though not unprecedented, is something else: the handshake took place between Asi, the Italian Space Agency, a public body, and SpaceX, a private company. Just a few years ago, an agreement of this kind would have been signed with Nasa. But it is now clear that things have changed.

The technological capability to reach where others cannot is increasingly in the hands of commercial entities, and Elon Musk, particularly in the transport sector, reigns supreme. “Climb aboard! We’re going to Mars! Starship now offers services for the Red Planet. We are excited to collaborate with the Italian Space Agency on this one-of-a-kind agreement. More news to come,” tweeted Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, echoing a statement from President Valente. Both speak of a “first of its kind agreement.”
This is true for Mars and, above all, for Starship. Despite Musk’s well-known obsession with the Red Planet, SpaceX has so far not carried out any “Martian” services. The only payload launched in that direction was a car: the Tesla Roadster convertible, at whose wheel sat Starman, a mannequin in a spacesuit. The rocket was a Falcon Heavy, the heavy-lift launcher on its maiden flight.

Services and opportunities

The new paradigm of the space economy today also means talking to private companies to purchase specific services. This model dominates Nasa’s approach, for example in managing the next commercial stations in low Earth orbit, which will succeed the Iss.
Italy, too, is applying it with increasing frequency: just think of the Ax-3 mission, in which the Air Force purchased a flight for astronaut Walter Villadei, who went into orbit aboard the International Space Station in January 2024.
It was a joint effort involving the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministries of Defense, Enterprises and Made in Italy, Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, the Italian Space Agency, and the Air Force itself. In that case, the provider was Texas based Axiom Space, the vehicle was a Falcon 9, and the capsule a SpaceX Crew Dragon. Even earlier, Villadei had traveled beyond the sky for the Air Force, which had purchased for him, Lieutenant Colonel Angelo Landolfi, and CNR engineer Pantaleone Carlucci a suborbital flight with Virgin Galactic.

It was Nasa itself that initiated the purchase of space transportation services from private companies, precisely with SpaceX, which was thus able to expand and consolidate its role as a supplier. The prime example is orbital transport of cargo and astronauts to and from the ISS.
Transporting “things” all the way to the surface of Mars, however, is easier said than done. Reaching it and landing there have so far been achieved by only a few missions, mostly American. And Starship still remains an unknown, due to its most recent tests, which have been less than stellar.

For the first missions to the Red Planet, the process will not be on demand. But this is not so different from typical inaugural flights, when payloads are loaded onto a rocket that would otherwise launch empty.
In the case of Starship, it will be hard to speak of a debut, given SpaceX’s chosen approach, iterative and incremental, which involves testing, failing, learning from mistakes, modifying, and repeating in a loop that promises to develop complex systems more quickly. And yet, when it comes to Mars, every first departure, even with a proven vehicle, is something of a debut, especially the first attempt to land on the surface.

In the end, as Shotwell suggested, the essence seems to be: “We are going. For those who want to come along, there’s plenty of room.” Italy seized the opportunity.