Salto di Quirra is a restricted weapons testing range and rocket launch site near Perdasdefogu on the island of Sardinia.

At the beginning of the 1960s, this base was used for the first sounding rocket launches carried out by the CRA (Centro Ricerche Aerospaziali) in cooperation with the Italian Air Force and NASA.

Two test firings of the Zefiro 9 rocket engine, designed to power the third stage of the Vega launch vehicle, have been conducted at Salto di Quirra.

[5] From its very first start, the Salto di Quirra (Sardinia) firing range played a relevant role in Italian space operations.

The range belonged to the ITAF Ammunition Research Unit, since 1956 headed by Luigi Broglio whose name had been put forward by Gen. Mario Pezzi.

In 1961, together with NASA, CNR planned a series of weather experiments releasing clouds of lithium-sodium carried in the atmosphere by USA-built Nike-Cajun missiles launched from the Wallops Island Base (Va) and Salto di Quirra (Italy) range.

These experiments were to be fundamental to build the European Space Agency in the following years: British-built Skylark and French-built Centaure missiles were used for the tests.