Space Operations Command: General Danilo Figà succeeds General Luca Monaco

ROME – The change of command ceremony at the top of the Space Operations Command (COS) took place in Vigna di Valle, at the Joint Sicral Management and Control Center. Brigadier General Danilo Figà officially took over the leadership of the unit, succeeding Brigadier General Luca Monaco, who held the position since May 2022.

The handover took place in the presence of the Chief of Staff of the Joint Operational Command (COVI), Air Force General Michele Oballa.

Continuity and challenges of the new mandate

General Figà, who previously served as Chief of Staff of the same COS, assumes command responsibility without interruption. His mandate will focus on consolidating the capabilities with which Defense monitors the orbital environment, coordinates satellite assets, and ensures support for operations in the land, maritime, air, and cyber domains.

During his speech, General Oballa emphasized the strategic importance of the sector:

Space is no longer just a technological sector, but an essential component of military operations.

The achievements of the Monaco four-year period and his strategic vision for the future

The handover concludes a four-year period of great achievements guided by the forward-looking vision of General Luca Monaco, who skillfully interpreted the challenges of a space environment defined as congested, contested, and competitive. Under his leadership, the COS charted the course for the defense of the future Space, founded on cutting-edge operational pillars:

• Strengthening Space Domain Awareness: Monaco highlighted the need for increasingly advanced awareness of the space scenario, capable of monitoring debris, detecting anomalous maneuvers, and preventing collisions using advanced space-based sensors (space-based SSA), multifunction telescopes, and artificial intelligence algorithms to manage a vast volume of data.
• Operational readiness and reactive launch: Monaco's vision anticipated the need for a "Country System" approach to ensure assets ready for launch, capable of quickly replacing any compromised satellites, adopting reactivity models similar to those of the U.S. Space Force.
• Integrated command and control and resilience: Facing multidomain complexity, Monaco pushed for Command and Control solutions based on machine learning support (always keeping humans in the decision-making loop) and a satellite architecture based on constellations of small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO and VLEO), more flexible, economical, and resilient than traditional large assets.
• Concrete historical achievements: Among the most significant results achieved are the conduct of the first national orbital decommissioning of a military satellite (transferring Sicral 1 to a safe graveyard orbit) and the decisive contribution to the establishment of the National Prs Center, an infrastructure dedicated to the encrypted service of the European Galileo program for authorized government users.

Towards a new operational dimension

The work of the new commander will follow the excellent work set by Monaco and complete interforce integration. The new Space Operations Room – integrated into the Joint Operations Center of COVI – will aim to make multidomain planning increasingly incisive.

The strategic objective for the near future will be to merge protected communications, Earth observation, satellite navigation, and orbital data into a unified operational framework, transforming space informational superiority into a concrete operational advantage for the Italian Armed Forces.