referred to as the “Italian von Braun”. Under his guide Italy built and operated a satellite in orbit around the Earth and became the first country to deploy an equatorial launching pad, the San Marco, and to experiment successful launching from it. Carlo Buongiorno, Broglio's pupil and the first director general of ASI. San Marco programme Early Italian space efforts during the Space Race era were built around cooperation between the Italian Space Commission (a branch of the National Research Council) and NASA supported primarily by the Centro Ricerche Aerospaziali, the aerospace research group of the University of Rome La Sapienza. This plan, conceived by Luigi Broglio, led to the San Marco programme of Italian-built satellites beginning with the launch of Italy's first satellite, San Marco 1, from Wallops Island. The San Marco project since 1967 was focused on the launching of scientific satellites by Scout rockets from a mobile rigid platform located close to the equator. This station, composed of 3 oil platforms and two logistical support boats, was installed off the Kenya coast, close to the town of Malindi. Italy would later launch further satellites in the series (San Marco 2 in 1967, San Marco 3 in 1971, San Marco 4 in 1974 and San Marco D/L in 1988 ) using the American Scout rockets like the original, but from its own spaceport. Co-operation and consolidation As one of the earliest countries to be engaged in space exploration, Italy became a founder and key partner in the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) and the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), established on 29 March and 14 June 1962 respectively. Both of these would later merge to form the European Space Agency on 30 April 1975. Further work would continue under the direction of the National Research Council including the launch of an indigenous telecoms/research satellite called SIRIO-1 in 1977. A planned follow-up mission SIRIO-2 was destroyed in the Ariane 1 L-05 launch failure. During the 1980s, it became clear of the need to rationalise and strengthen Italy's position in space research and so the decision was made to create the Italian Space Agency to further coordinate the nation's space activities. Programmes Robotic exploration ASI's first large scientific satellite mission was BeppoSAX, developed in collaboration with the Netherlands and launched in 1996. Named after Giuseppe “Beppo” Occhialini, an important figure in Italian high-energy physics, the satellite was a mission to