"I was a great admirer of his science-fiction work at an early age, and even more so later in my professional life working in telecommunications and television satellites," Beretta said in a statement.
In the October 1945 issue of the British journal 'Wireless World' Clarke published his idea for 'geostationary' communications satellites.
He calculated that an object orbiting the earth at 36,000 kilometres above the surface would travel at the same rate as the rotation of the globe and would be seemingly suspended in space above a fixed point on the ground.
Just three such satellites would cover allow the entire surface of the world to be covered. But now there around 300 geostationary satellites on Clarke orbit.