The cooperation between military users and Italian Space Agency in the COSMO-SkyMed Program

COSMO-SkyMed represents the first dual-use Earth Observation program in the world. Conceived and developed taking into account the differences exigencies coming from civilian and military users. Therefore the program development has due satisfied both requirements, those typically military and those linked to the heterogeneous civilian world. In the ECSS standards is clearly settled the project work flow. There is the initial phase in which it's necessary to fix the user requirements, followed by the Phase A, named Feasibility, in which the industrial teams has to analyze the feasibility of the project. It is evident that this logical flow became very "fragile" for a dual use program cause its internal complexity. The cooperation between the civilian world and the military one it has been the bigger challenge for the COSMO's Program Office. © 2006 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.