San Vito Solar Observatory
San Vito, Italy
U.S. Air Force Operations
Operation & Maintenance

The San Vito Solar Observatory is at San Vito dei Normanni Air Station, a former intelligence base that remains partly open for Balkan contingencies. Located 300 miles southeast of Rome, on Italy’s boot heel, the observatory is one of six global sites in the Air Force’s Solar Electro-Optical Network, which is strategically located worldwide to ensure 24-hour sun monitoring.

Organizationally under the 55th Space Weather Support Squadron, Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, the observatory operates seven days a week, 365 days a year. Its mission: reporting real-time solar events to the 55th, the Department of Defense’s sole centralized space environmental forecast and warning unit, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Operation Center at Boulder, Colorado. They, in turn, analyze information to predict solar and space environmental phenomena for nearly 500 organizations, including NASA, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, U.S. Space Command, and Air Force Space Command.

Services provided:

• Solar optical and radio observations, analyses, and reports using the Solar Observing Optical Network telescope, Radio Solar Telescope Network telescope, and their associated computer systems.
• Preventive, scheduled, and unscheduled maintenance of the equipment required to accomplish this mission.
• Requisitioning and picking up supplies and equipment from the Traffic Management Office or other appropriate source.
• Maintenance and safeguarding of all equipment and supply items on site, equipment and supply accounts and records, in accordance with applicable Air Force publications.
• Maintaining a stock of supply parts to support installed mission equipment.
• Conducting annual inventories on Air Force bench stock, Supply Point, and CA/CRL items.