Offshore Patrol Vessels - Constellations Class ITS Cassiopea is the first unit of the “Constellations” class. She was delivered to the Italian Navy in October 1989. Three other units bore the same name before: one in 1885, an offshore Destroyer in 1907 and a Destroyer in 1936. The latter participated in World War II with 127 missions escorting cargo ships and 18 offensive missions. The current ITS Cassiopea took part in the first Gulf War in 1991, patrolling the oil platforms south of Sicily; carried out antipollution operations in the waters off Genoa (Haven Disaster, April 1991) and Livorno (Moby Prince disaster, April 1991), as well as many migration flows patrol operations in the Adriatic Sea (Albanian exodus in the late ‘90s), and in the Strait of Sicily (the recent exodus of African populations).

ITS Cassiopea also provided logistic support to the minehunters deployed to patrol accesses to the former Yugoslavia’s sea ports during the “Decisive Enhancement” operation in 1996. In summer 2008 she conducted patrol operations off the Lebanese coasts on cargo ships within the “UNIFIL” operation.

The Unit’s motto is “ADSUM,” a Latin world meaning “to be present, to prove bravery.” The motto faithfully represents ITS Cassiopea’s mission: patrol, presence and surveillance operations. ITS Cassiopea's crest shows the outline of the sailing Unit, surmounted by the Cassiopeia Constellation, which gives its name to the ship. Cassiopea was the vain wife of King Cepheus of Æthiopia (who in the sky is next to her to form the only two constellations dedicated to husband and wife). One day, while combing her long curly hair, Cassiopea boasted that she was more beautiful than the Nereids, the 50 nymphs daughters of Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea. One of them, Amphitrite, was the wife of Poseidon, the Sea god. So, the Nereids asked Poseidon to punish Cassiopea, and the god sent a monster to ravage Cepheu’s land.

Cepheus and Cassiopea chained their daughter Andromeda to a rock as a sacrifice to sate the monster, but she was saved by Perseus. As a further punishment, Cassiopea was condemned to turn around the celestial pole upside-down. In the sky, she is depicted seated on a throne, while playing with her hair.