Helping the Italian aerospace industry, which aims to break ground and take up positions in a booming market: these are the objectives of the official delegation of Italian firms organised by ICE, the Italian Trade Commission, and Aiad (the trade association of the defence and aerospace industry, www.aiad.it) that will take part in Fidae 2008 - International Air & Space Fair - that will take place in Santiago del Chile at the Arturo Merino International airport from the 31^st March to the 6^th April 2008.

Fidae is the biggest trade show in Latin America for the whole of the avionics sector, dedicated to military as well as civilian equipment, including air traffic control and satellite communication units. The fair takes place every two years and in 2006 it had 378 exhibitors from 45 countries spread over a 21,800 square meter exhibition area. That edition also set a record for the number of visitors, which were over 130,000 (134,000 to be precise; 41,282 of them were marketing managers, buying executives from producing firms and trade journalists).

Chile is going through an intense development phase in the space technology sector thanks to the efforts of the ‘Agencia chilena del espacio’. Demand for products and services linked to space technology is worth around 500 million dollars a year: mostly it is made up by renting of satellites by public and private Chilean institutions. Satellite technology, therefore, is a sector in full bloom. Chilean buyers of aerospace technologies vary: public enterprises, military institutions but also firms, private citizens and commercial networks. In particular, Chile is a great importer of satellite communications and civilian and military technology for the avionics industry.

Italy is the fourth European trade partner and one of the largest investors in the country. The Italian defence, aeronautics and aerospace industry, which employs 50,000 people and has an annual turnover of around 10 million euros (according to the latest data from Aiad) includes several high-profile or well established brands such as Alenia Aeronautica, Alenia Spazio, Aermacchi, Agustawestland, Finmeccanica, Piaggio Aero Industries. In particular, its aerospace industry is able to offer top-end products in some extremely specialised niches, such as the construction of satellites and space components. Italian firms in this sector are concentrated in a few specialised manufacturing districts: the largest are in Piedmont, Campania, Apulia and Lazio. Recently, some districts have started to collaborate with others in different regions, with the long term objective of setting up a national Italian Aerospace Pole.

One of the most recent Italian initiatives in the aerospace sector is the launch (on the 19^th February) of the operational phase for the Arbatax 2008 campaign for the ‘Pollux’ mission, the second specimen of a flying aerospace laboratory with no pilot, designed and manufactured by Cira, the Italian centre of aerospace research, with the contribution of leading firms in the industry. ‘Pollux’ is similar to ‘Castor’, the first example of a flying aerospace laboratory with no pilot designed by Cira, but it is characterised by a higher technological content, developed on the basis of the experience gained and the data collected onboard by computers and transmitted to earth stations via satellite during the launch of ‘Castor’. The ‘Pollux’ mission will require more complex planning, both in terms of the speed that will have to be reached during the exercise, and of the manoeuvres that will have to be carried out. This second flying test will last 140 seconds, while Castor’s first flight only took 47 seconds.