Selenia’s first venture was the MIM-23A Hawk anti-aircraft system, designed by the US company Raytheon, its 40% shareholder. The project occupied the company for over thirty years and had significant spin-offs in terms of production, innovation and commercial activities, with new orders from around the world. Of its five modules, Selenia won the responsibility to build the Hawk surface-to-air missile and the Pulse Acquisition Radar (PAR), the search radar of the missile system. The first Hawk produced in the historic Fusaro (Naples) factory was launched in 1961. The first two Army and Air Force units entered service in 1964. The Hawk programme was the first step on a three-stage pathway that led Selenia to produce another missile under US licence, the ‘Sparrow’ and, later, the ‘Aspide’, a fully Italian-designed prototype.

The Italian state set up the Ente Partecipazioni e Finanziamento Industrie Manifatturiere (Manufacturing Industry Investment and Financing Office - EFIM), which played an active role in Finanziaria Ernesto Breda on which Breda Meccanica Bresciana depended. In the 1960s, one of the company’s best-known products were the 12- and 20-gauge automatic shotguns for hunting and shooting, which for a long time complemented its return to the manufacture of defence systems.

In 1962, Telespazio began the construction of the ‘Fucino (L’Aquila) Experimental Station for communications via artificial satellites’. A year later, the Station received its first signals from the US satellite Telstar, launched in July 1962, and only a few months later, its first photographic image. These were the first satellite transmissions between Italy and the United States. These experiments led to a project for the ‘Piero Fanti’ Space Centre, officially opened on 28 September 1967 in the presence of Prime Minister Aldo Moro, which became - with 170 antennas and 370,000 square metres of surface area - the world’s largest and most important civilian ‘teleport’.

The 76/62 naval gun was developed in the 1950s as an overlapping twin-barrel naval turret to arm the newly built Centauro frigates. After the MMI version, based on the experience gained when building the M113 troop transport vehicles under US licence, there were significant technological advances in using and processing aluminium. This innovation halved the weight of the 76/62’s turret from 15 to around 7.5 tonnes. Continual performance upgrades to the 76/62 have made it OTO Melara’s most successful product, selling to over 70 navies worldwide.

Aerfer (as it was then called) started working with the Douglas Company on the DC-9 programme in 1965 as industrial compensation for Alitalia’s decision to buy the aircraft. For the company, which became Aeritalia, the agreement marked the beginning of its participation in a number of major international aerostructure programmes. The programme was a great success, and the production of fuselage panels - which continued until 2000 also for the later variants of the aircraft (MD-80, in the extended version and MD-90) - totalled 2,014 production runs.

On 20 July 1969, the historic images of the first moon landing could be seen in Europe courtesy of four stations that picked up the signal from the Early Bird satellite. One of these was Telespazio’s Fucino Space Centre, equipped with antenna B, a large 27-metre dish (installed two years earlier), which picked up satellite TV signals from around the world. On 29 July, within ten days of the Apollo 11 landing, Telespazio broadcast another unprecedented event worldwide through an eight-metre diameter antenna transferred by sea to Kampala, Uganda: the first Papal visit, by Pope Paul VI, to Africa.

Alfa Romeo launched the Alfasud at the 1971 Turin Motor Show. This was the first car produced in the Pomigliano d’Arco (Naples) plant, which opened in 1968: a model factory and ‘ideal city of Fordist and Taylorist manufacturing’. It was designed by the Austrian Rudolf Hruschka, previously creator of the ‘Giulietta’, Domenico Chirico, appointed head of the Alfasud project in 1966, and designer Giorgetto Giugiaro. The car introduced some significant mechanical innovations (especially in the braking system and suspension), combined with a uniquely recognisable design style. These attributes made it - to date - the model with the biggest production run in the brand’s history, with over one million vehicles produced between 1971 and 1989.

Launched by NASA and the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), Spacelab was the first scientific laboratory installed on the Space Shuttle, housing up to four astronauts to conduct experiments in orbit. The construction involved companies from ten European countries, with Germany leading the programme (54% contribution) and Italy second with 18%. Aeritalia designed and built the entire service module and thermal control system. The programme was a turning point for the industry and led Aeritalia to become Italy’s largest space company and one of the leaders in Europe.

Following a NASA and Telespazio Memorandum of Understanding signed a year earlier to receive data from US satellites, the Fucino Space Centre received the first remote sensing images from the Landsat Earth observation satellites. It was the beginning of a new line of activity that, within a few decades - with the creation of e-GEOS and participation in major environmental protection programmes such as Copernicus - became a defining feature of Telespazio: Earth observation and geo-information.

On 26 August 1977, SIRIO (Italian Industrial and Operational Research Satellite) went into orbit from the US base at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Its purpose was to develop new possibilities for satellite telephone and television communication. SIRIO was the focus of many experimental activities, on high-frequency propagation phenomena of up to 18 GHz, conducted by Italian and international research centres. Designed for a two-year operational life, it continued to run until 1985. As well as proving the levels of excellence achieved by the Italian space industry, and by Selenia in particular, the mission’s success paved the way for participation in future national projects, such as the Italsat mission, and international ones such as the ESA’s Olympus programme.

In response to the Italian Navy’s request for a new torpedo for its surface and submarine units, Whitehead Moto Fides presented an ambitious project: the A.184, a wire-guided heavy torpedo with significant autonomy and the ability to operate with acoustic self-guidance. The unique feature distinguishing this from the previous A.182 and Canguro wire-guided torpedoes was in the wire connection between submarine and torpedo. The ship coil was no longer housed in a spindle towed outside the hull, but placed in a metal ‘basket’ inside the launch tube. Product development was completed in 1978. The Italian Navy still uses the A.184.

On 27 April, the new MB.339 PAN training aircraft replaced the FIAT G.91R used by the Frecce Tricolori aerobatics team. With the 339, Aermacchi capitalised on the technological capabilities developed with the previous MB.326, consolidating its leading position in the national and international trainer jet market. The MB.339 provided an aircraft for the entire training cycle, from basic to advanced, without having to multiply the flight lines. It could be used as a Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) in both the standard two-seater version or that with multi-purpose defence systems.

On 16 August 1984, the prototype for the ATR 42, a new regional turboprop aircraft, flew for the first time just over four years after a technical agreement was signed between Aeritalia and Aérospatiale of France to converge their respective research on the AIT.230 and AS.35 in the ATR consortium. It paved the way for one of the Finmeccanica Group’s greatest aviation successes, with an aircraft that remains a world bestseller in its class today. With this new aircraft, Italy joined a small circle of nations with the capability to build civil aircraft of the highest level.

On 30 April 1986, the National University Centre of Electronic Computing in Pisa (part of the National Research Centre - CNR) connected to the US ARPANET network via a satellite network built by CNR, Telespazio and Italcable and operated by the Fucino Space Centre. Three pioneering academics worked on the project: Luciano Lenzini, Stefano Trumpy and Antonio Blasco Bonito. Italy was the fourth nation, after Norway, the United Kingdom and Germany, to join the internet network. It was the start of a revolution that would profoundly change telecommunications systems, language and human life.