The ASTRI program began about 10 years ago aiming at the development of pathfinders of small-
size (4 m diameter) dual-mirror aplanatic wide-field IACT telescopes in view of the implementation
of the array of small-size telescopes (SSTs) of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observatory
at its southern site. In the beginning, it was supported by INAF and MUR (the Italian Ministry
for Universities and Research), but then other important international partners like the University
of Sao Paulo/FAPESP, Nort-West University/South Africa, IAC, FGG, and Université de Geneve
have joined the effort at different stages of the project. The first important achievement was
the realization of the ASTRI-Horn prototype as an end-to-end system and its installation at the
INAF site of Serra La Nave (on the slope of the Etna Mount volcano in Sicily) equipped with an
innovative compact camera based on SiPM sensors. The telescope allowed us to prove for the
first time the Schwarzschild-Couder optical configuration as an aplanatic system, and to detect the
Crab Nebula in gamma rays. Now, after a major refurbishment, the telescope is used for extensive
observational campaigns of bright gamma-ray sources, cosmic rays, and muon radiography studies
of the volcano. In the meantime, the ASTRI Mini-Array of 9 wide field (> 10 deg) telescopes is
being implemented at Tenerife for studying the gamma-ray sky in the 1- 100 TeV energy band
with unprecedented angular resolution (3 arcmin), representing an ideal complementarity with
LHAASO. In this paper we will report on the status of the project, discussing the scientific goals
and expectations.