Transition to the space sector: Challenges, Skills and New Routes to Space

The space sector has long outgrown its traditional boundaries, moving closer to industries historically distant from space: aviation, metalworking, automotive, motorsport. The challenge today is no longer technological capability — where Italy boasts a solid industrial base, but rather turning that capability into a market. A question becomes crucial: how do you consolidate an ecosystem based on service and manufacturing demand? In this transition, “non-space” companies play a decisive role. For many, space is an opportunity for diversification; for others, a source of technological solutions to innovate their own products and services. It is a two-way transition: established competences in precision manufacturing, advanced materials, mechatronics and electronics find in space a premium end-market, while space gives back methods, design standards and qualification disciplines that raise the level of the entire terrestrial supply chain. This panel brings together companies already walking this path — from high-performance components to onboard systems, from diagnostic services to downstream platforms — to focus on enabling conditions, recurring obstacles and emerging business models (asset servitization, cross-sector integration) of the transition toward the space economy. The goal: to identify what is needed, industrially and institutionally, for diversification into space to become a sustainable market rather than an isolated episode.

Programme

Moderator
Lorenzo Ciapetti, Territorial Development Expert, AeroHub-Clust-ER Mech

Speakers
Francesca Paoli, President and CEO, Dino Paoli srl
Vincenzo Patti, Certification and Quality Management Expert, Sideius
Mariacristina Gherpelli, Site Manager, JSP Corporation
Guido Munari, Scientific Coordinator, T3Lab
Andrea Zaccherini, Managing Director, Business Unit Advanced Technologies - SACMI