Astronauts of the past

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FEBRUARY 2020

Astronauts of the past Today’s astronauts are exceeding themselves, but the world is getting ready for new men of Space

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Official magazine of the Italian Air Force since 1925, 144 pages covering aerospace technology, aviation history and more.

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www.aeronautica.difesa.it

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days in Space, over 200 experiments carried out in orbit, 4 extra-vehicular activities (three of them as a captain), the role of International Space Station commander – an absolute first for Italy.

Hundreds of tweets, dozens of in-flight connections with Earth. The results obtained by Luca Parmitano and his Beyond mission went far beyond those obtained in 2013 with Volare, which were already significant and earned him the title of first Italian spacewalker and appreciation from the NASA management due to the cold blood with which he was able to manage the nearly life-threatening emergency of water in his helmet.

The man who landed in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, last February 6th is the version 4.0 of the @astro_luca who had been a hit on Twitter thanks to his spectacular and poetic pictures of planet Earth taken from the Italian Cupola. Today, he’s without any doubt a more ‘space-advanced’ human being, a veteran of life in orbit and passage through atmosphere, who’s capable of readapting quickly to both the lightness of space and the weight of gravity. But more than anything, we had the impression that Parmitano was capable of personifying the institutional role of the astronaut who becomes the ambassador of humanity in space, and Earth from space. Beauty and fragility have become an inseparable pair in his tweets, which talk about disappearing atolls, advancing deserts and the burning Amazon, raising an alarm on environment and the role played by human beings who, in a provocative change of perspective, are described by Parmitano as unaware victims of their own actions: «Life goes on and far beyond the damages we are making, because the Universe is suitable for life». «Human beings» are at risk, instead, and «we need to act upon it».

And while we ask ourselves what Luca’s next mission will be, either a third one by the International Space Station or a mission to the Moon for the Artemis programme, we can see on the horizon a new era of astronautics, the commercial one. Because, if on one side the NASA opened the selection process for the new class of astronauts designated for the purpose of reconquering our satellite, it announced on the other side that researchers will be able to fly aboard the future crew shuttles, Dragon and Starliner, along with their experiments. This happens in a context where the access of private operators to the International Space Station

EDITORIAL

PARMITANO VERSION 4.0

by Manuela Proietti @unamanus

«Also the status of astronaut, will lose appeal»

is already becoming a reality and the launch of suborbital flights is just around the corner. Therefore, the birth of a new professional astronaut, who will undergo a ‘reduced training’, seems as imminent as necessary.

And one can imagine that also the status of astronaut, which anyway will remain – at least for now – a privilege for the few, will be destined to lose some of the elitist appeal it has today. Same as it happens for the job of commercial airline pilots, whose initial exclusivity diminished and scaled this extraordinary aspect down, in a not too far future meeting someone who went to space will be part of our daily lives. A bit like catching a flight today.

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OMMARIO

N.20 - FEBRUARY 2020

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“Editorial”

BY MANUELA PROIETTI

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“Face to face with the Sun” THE SPECIAL ISSUE

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“A blaze in the sky”

BY DENISE PERRONE

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“A look towards the Sun”

BY FULVIA CROCI

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“Never so close to the Sun”

BY EDITORIAL STAFF

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“Unraveling the burning mysteries of the Sun”

BY EDITORIAL STAFF

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“The private future of the ISS”

BY FRANCESCO REA

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“The Space gardens rebus”

BY EDITORIAL STAFF

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“Private Space: SpaceX at the forefront”

BY EDITORIAL STAFF

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Global Science

managing director

Gianni Cipriani director

Francesco Rea

graphics project

Paola Gaviraghi

graphics

Davide Coero Borga

“Lia’s journey”

BY DAVIDE CAMPARSI

“Mars: summer departure, winter stay”

BY FRANCESCO REA

TESTATA GIORNALISTICA GRUPPO GLOBALIST Reg. Tribunale Roma 11.2017 del 02.02.2017 online www.asi.it - globalscience.it

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“Italian excellence for Space applications”

BY EDITORIAL STAFF

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“Does Artificial Intelligence mislead?”

BY MANUELA DI DIO

“How neutrinos saved the Universe”

BY ILARIA MARCIANO

editorial coordination Manuela Proietti editorial office ASI - Globalist

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Face to face with the Sun The adventure of Solar Orbiter, an ESA-NASA mission targeted at studying the Sun, started on February 9th at 23:03 (US time). On February 17th, the probe put its arm into operation and showed the proper functioning of one of the on-board instruments, the MAG magnetometer.

The operation centre team in Darmstadt, Germany, switched the two sensors of the magnetometer on – one next to end of the arm and the other one next to the space vehicle – about 21 hours after take-off. It took about 30 minutes for the arm to unfold, and during this time frame the instrument started to record data.

The first results detected the magnetic field of the probe while, after the arm unfolded, the first signals of the weak magnetic field of the environment around Solar Orbiter were detected too.

This operation allowed the team to identify the signals not linked to the solar wind, such as perturbations coming from the probe and the instruments.

The next step will involve the switching on of all the instruments to assess their performance, a procedure that will last throughout the month of April, while the first scientific data should be available from the middle of May. We decided to reserve the opening articles of this issue to Solar Orbiter, which received a significant scientific and technological contribution from Italy and to which we dedicate a long special.

«The adventure of Solar Orbiter has begun»

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THE REPORT FIRSTHAND

A BLAZE IN THE SKY

by Denise Perrone @ASI_spazio

It’s February 9th, it’s 23.03 on the East Coast of the United States, 5.03 AM in Italy, when the Atlas V’ launcher starts its trip to the space and releases the Solar Orbiter probe on the path which, in a couple of years, will take it to the solar orbit to let us live an unprecedented experience of knowledge. The dozens of researches who made possible to carry out this mission assisted to the launch along with the press and institutions. We asked one of them to tell us about his experience.

«The noise, the vibrations, the blinding light»

Its blaze has just got lost in tonight’s dark sky in Florida, yet I can still feel its warmth and emotion. If I close my eyes, I can relive the noise, the vibrations, the blinding light in the moment when the motors of Atlas V turned on and allowed the Solar Orbiter probe to overcome the attraction of Earth and start its trip towards a special and vital destination: our star, the Sun. Solar Orbiter is a mission which was born from the cooperation between the European Space Agency and the NASA and has a strong Italian participation: in fact, three experiments out of ten were designed and conducted in our country and this is the main reason why I’m here in Cape Canaveral to attend this historical launch.

Solar Orbiter will be the first probe to stare directly at the Sun from a distance that no telescope has ever reached before. Moving out of the ecliptic plane, for the first time it will be possible to observe the poles of our star to try and disclose the

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mysteries that are still hiding there. Furthermore, thanks to the in-situ instruments it will be possible to study directly and in detail the plasma of solar wind next to the probe and link the events observed on the Sun with the plasma propagating in the heliosphere. This link will allow to shed some light on the mechanisms through which the Sun governs the physical conditions of the surrounding space, that sometimes can have important effects on terrestrial life and technology through violent plasma eruptions.

This great challenge finally starts, with the high hopes and expectations that all of us who contributed to make it possible are placing on this mission. It was a wait filled with emotions: we hadn’t just been waiting for tonight, but also for the days, months and years before it which found its synthesis in the hours before the launch, to then break free in the glaze that got lost in the dark. In the several meetings preceding the launch, between a scientific and an operation coordination, we were anxiously waiting for the results of the latest tests on the rocket and on weather monitoring. The possibility of rain or strong wind increased our fear of a delay in the launch date, but luckily everything went well and here we are, celebrating this first result all together. Shouts of joy, applauses, some tears

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of happiness. Scientists from all over the world who have been working and will keep working for the common goal of understanding our star to improve our life on Earth; it doesn’t matter under which flag, but because we are all under the same sky: #WeAreAllSolarOrbiters. You could already breathe the festive atmosphere the day before the launch, when the NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre opened its doors to us to pick up our guest badges and assist to the launch of Solar Orbiter. You could feel everyone’s happiness from a distance, smiles filled with emotion had invaded the streets of the Kennedy Space Centre and the emotion was made public during the mission briefing. Both the scientific and the technical experts, including the experts on the launcher, answered several questions and curiosities raised by those present.

The expectations about the launch were great, and they are even greater now in view of the scientific conquers that we will obtain thanks to Solar Orbiter. Therefore, for the time being, all we can do is saying “Have a safe trip Solar Orbiter, keep getting us emotional!”

The on-board instruments. On the left: a detail of the solar surface.

Credits: ESA.

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INTERVIEW WITH BARBARA NEGRI

A LOOK TOWARDS THE SUN

by Fulvia Croci @ASI_spazio

Face to face with Barbara Negri, Head of the ASI’s Universe Exploration and Observation Unit, who will talk us through the Solar Orbiter mission.

What are the characteristics that make Solar Orbiter unique?

Solar Orbiter is the first mission that will perform a close flyby of the Sun, from a distance of 0,28 AU. The probe will provide us with an overview of the Sun’s poles and will carry aboard the instruments for both in-situ and remote sensing.

What are the main goals of the mission?

The main goals of the mission are understanding which area of the Sun’s corona gives origin to the plasma of solar wind and to the magnetic field, how flares and coronal mass ejections drive heliospheric variability and produce energetic particle radiations, how solar dynamo works and its role in the connections between the Sun and the heliosphere.

What are the payloads and what are their tasks?

The payload is made up of 10 instruments: 6 remote-sensing telescopes and 4 in-situ instruments. The set of instruments will provide a sight of the Sun from the bottom part of the photosphere up to the external heliosphere. Solar Orbiter will be able to study the photospheric magnetic field and to obtain the helioseismic measurements with Phi, the images of the atmospheric layers above the photosphere with Eui and Spice, the flare monitoring with Stix (X-ray spectrometry / telescope) and the images of the corona and external heliosphere with Metis and Solohi. Simultaneously, the probe will sample in-situ energy particles generated by flares and coronal mass ejections with Epd, the solar wind with Swa and will measure the local magnetic field with the Mag magnetometer and radio and plasma waves with Rpw. What is Italy’s role in this mission?

The ASI funded the development of the Metis coronagraph, as well as other three instruments, on different levels. Metis was designed by a consortium of Italian scientific institutes, among which are the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), the Universities of Florence and Padua and the National Research Council (CNR).

The design and industrial production were supervised by an industrial team guided by Ohb Italia and Thales Alenia Space, with

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the cooperation of the Max Planck Institute and the National Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Furthermore, the ASI funded the development of the Swa data processing unit and Stix software, developed by the University of Genoa.

What will we be able to discover and how will this knowledge be useful to develop practical applications?

The goal is understanding how the solar dynamo shapes the magnetic field and how this latter drives the behaviour of the heliosphere. The study of the Sun doesn’t just have the goal of improving our knowledge of the Universe and the physics governing it, but it also allows us to better understand space weather, i.e. how the Sun has an impact on the terrestrial environment.

The probe’s trip around the Sun. Credits: ESA.

What special measures were adopted to protect the probe and its instruments from solar heat?

The probe is protected from heat by a thermal shield made of coated titanium multilayer, designed

by Solar Black and developed for Solar Orbiter.

The electronics of the space vehicle and payload is capable of surviving the radiations emitted by the Sun for the whole duration of the mission.

How long will the mission last?

The mission should last about 10 years, including slightly less than two years for the cruising phase, 5 years for the nominal mission and 3,5 years for the extended mission, when the orbit of the space vehicle will reach an inclination of about 33 degrees vs. the ecliptic plane.

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In the graphic, all the missions dedicated to the study of the Sun. Credits: ESA.

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THE SOLAR ORBITER PROBE WAS LAUNCHED

NEVER SO CLOSE TO THE SUN

by Editorial Staff @ASI_spazio

olar Orbiter is the first of the M missions (Medium) of the ESA Cosmic Vision Programme 2015-2025, whose main goal is studying the Sun and how it drives the physical conditions of interplanetary space.

With a set of 10 instruments, Solar Orbiter will be able to simultaneously observe different layers of the solar atmosphere and analyse in-situ the characteristics of the plasma ejected by the same solar atmosphere and accelerated in the interplanetary space. The combined use of remote-sensing and on-board instruments will allow to shed some light on the mechanisms through which the Sun governs the physical conditions of the surrounding space, that sometimes can have important effects on terrestrial life and technology through violent plasma eruptions.

Moving towards the internal part of Mercury’s orbit, Solar Orbiter will record images of the solar atmosphere from a very short distance, never reached before, and will allow to detect the plasma sources that hit the probe and to operate an unprecedented connection between the solar atmosphere and the heliosphere.

«Thanks to Solar Orbiter, the Sun will be studied in detail by a neighbour equipped with Italian instruments. Another celestial body of the whole Solar System will be observed or studied by something that has been created, designed or produced in our country. We are really proud of it». This is how the president of the Italian Space Agency, Giorgio Saccoccia, commented on the launch of the ESA Solar Orbiter mission. «The launch of the European probe Solar Orbiter will allow us to better understand how the Sun can influence climate changes in our planet. If one day we’ll be able to find a solution to it, we will owe it also to the work of our technicians and scientists.

Solar Orbiter – continues Saccoccia – is the result of a choral work, born from an international, rather than just European, cooperation.

Its launch is a new step towards strengthening the Italian leadership at a global level in a strategic industry such as scientific and technological development».

Among the ten instruments of the mission are the Metis coronagraph, designed by the Italian Space Agency in cooperation with the National Institute for Astrophysics and the National Research Council, several Italian universities and research institutes all over the world, the Swa (Solar Wind Analyser) Dpu (Data Processing Unit) and Stix (Spectrometer/Telescope for Imaging X-rays)

«An outstanding launch for a special mission»

software, which detects X-rays.

According to Nichi D’Amico, president of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, «Solar Orbiter is a very important and long-awaited mission, with a significant Italian contribution as the scientific coordination is under the responsibility of the INAF». «It was the most beautiful launch I’ve ever seen, with this amazing full moon and the rocket going up. An outstanding launch for a special mission» this is the emotional narration

by Fabio Favata, coordinator of the ESA scientific programmes, right after the launch. «Solar Orbiter is a great and ambitious mission, and it will revolutionize solar physics as we know it today; » this is Fabio Favata’s belief «the Sun has a strong influence on Earth, and Solar Orbiter will allow us to understand how the Sun drives the terrestrial environment, how the bubble in which Earth lives is generated and fed. Then it will allow us to understand how the Sun will help us to evolve in the future. It’s a European mission, where Italy had the important role of supplying one of the key instruments, which will take the pictures of the Sun’s corona».

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THALES ALENIA SPACE MAKES THE DIFFERENCE

UNRAVELING THE BURNING MYSTERIES OF THE SUN

by Editorial Staff @ASI_spazio

The journey of Solar Orbiter begins, with the Italian technology on board.

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The launch of Atlas V411 from Cape Canaveral left a spectacular luminous arc in the dawning sunlight - this is how courageous and fascinating mission of Solar Orbiter began on 10th of February, with the aim to study the Sun at a close range, helping us unveil the deepest secrets of our star and observe its polar regions for the first time.

Thales Alenia Space faced extraordinary challenges on this mission: to enable the study of the solar corona and protect the probe during its long journey. Metis, the coronograph, designed by a scientific team of INAF (National Institute for Astrophysics) and created by Thales Alenia Space on behalf of Italian Space Agency (ASI), is the first-ever device capable of obtaining images of the solar corona simultaneously in visible and ultraviolet light, allowing the identification of the structure and dynamics of the entire corona, uncovering its evolution, closely related to the effects of solar rotation. Solar Orbiter will be exposed to 13 times greater intensity than terrestrial solar energy, with temperatures over 500° C. The Heat Shield, designed and built by Thales Alenia Space, will prevent the spacecraft from damaging and melting, and at the same time, it will allow Metis and other sensors to observe the Sun, directly and seamlessly.

With this mission, Thales Alenia Space strengthens its role as a leader in space exploration, generating enormous progress in the capabilities and performance of the sophisticated equipment. The company has made key contributions to major European space exploration programs, such as BepiColombo, the Mercury exploration mission, Herschel, the infrared space observatory, Planck, the mission that has looked back at the dawn of time, but it will also face future challenges with the ESA mission Euclid, which will map the Universe and help us better understand dark matter and dark energy, scheduled for launch in 2022.

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SPACE FOR LIFE CREDIAMO NELLO SPAZIO COME NUOVO ORIZZONTE DELL’UMANITÀ PER COSTRUIRE UNA VITA SULLA TERRA

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AN EXCLUSIVE, NOT UNIQUE SPACE

THE PRIVATE FUTURE OF THE ISS

by Francesco Rea @francescorea

The NASA recently announced they entrusted Axiom company with the task of building a new habitation module as part of the Next Step programme. These habitation modules will be for commercial use. This choice goes hand-in-hand with the commercial crew programme, flights to be taken with the Boeing Starliner or the SpaceX Dragon with destination ISS, to take space tourists to space, but also to carry out experiments or other activities for private investors.

The International Space Station has never lacked tourists, starting from the first, the American Dennis Tito, to the last, the Canadian Guy Laliberté.

But we are no longer dealing with the eccentricity of a billionaire, rather with a different world, where the exclusive remains exclusive but is no longer unique.

The future of the International Space Station seems to rely unavoidably on the private sector, due to an ever-increasing interest in carrying out experimental activities in microgravity conditions by commercial enterprises, but also because carrying out such activities seems more and more at hand. The Bartolomeo project by the Airbus company is not new, and it’s about to be completed. It’s an International Space Station’s external research platform, that will be subsequently attached to the European Columbus module to carry out experiments that can’t be carried out within the International Space Station and dedicated to one of Cristopher Columbus’s sons.

The Starliner and Dragon capsules will launch into orbit both public and private material and, as mentioned in the editorial, a new figure of astronaut will be born: it will no longer be an all-round figure, but rather someone specialized in the task they will have to carry out. After all, the Space Station should conclude its operation life by 2024, basically tomorrow.

Nevertheless, it shows a full efficiency, which has been renewed also by its full utilisation. It would then be more than reasonable, as the space world of the United States shifts towards other goals, to renovate the International Space Station’s existence until 2028, with some more guarantees of a still very long operativity thanks to the private contribution.

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THE ABSENCE OF FERTILE GROUNDS

THE SPACE GARDENS REBUS

by Editorial Staff @ASI_spazio

Irrigated fields in the south-west of Kansas. Will we be able, one day, to be independent also on another planet?

Travelling to space is a substantially technological matter. Remaining in space is the difficult part, first of all from a biological point of view. Human beings were made to live on planet Earth, where they were born and evolved. Their organism functions according to the laws of physics on our planet, and this involves also our abilities to eat, assimilate and also produce.

Regolith is on the Moon, and it’s definitely not a prosperous and fertile ground. The same Mars, as promising as it is, would put us in danger of living on asparagus and potatoes, just to quote two works on this topic, the first one by Giovanni Bignami and the second one by Andy Weir. Therefore, it’s obvious that innovative and technological solutions supporting human beings ‘life in space during longterm missions are currently being studied, be it on the Moon or on Mars.

This is the goal of the ReBUS project, coordinated and funded by the Italian Space Agency, involving several research institutes such as the ENEA, the CNR, the Italian National Institute of Health, the Universities of Tor Vergata, Pavia and Federico II of Naples, industries such as Thales Alenia Space, Kayser Italia, Telespazio. ReBUS is a three-year project aimed at starting a national research line to produce bioregenerative systems supporting astronauts’ lives, which is the main goal for human exploration of space.

The bioregenerative system will be based on the integration of different organisms such as plants, fungi, bacteria and cyanobacteria, in order to maximise the use of in-situ available resources and, at the same time, minimise the use of the exogenous ones by recycling organic matter.

Furthermore, other lines of research involve the study of innovative systems for the growing of plants and microgreens in planetary outposts. To this aim, the study involves the use of “simulants” of lunar and Martian soils integrated with bioproducts obtained from the degradation of waste biomass, in an effort to reproduce a lunar or Martian condition and test the possibility to produce vegetables in-situ.

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BOEING IN TROUBLE

PRIVATE SPACE: SPACEX AT THE FOREFRONT

by Editorial Staff @ASI_spazio

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It looks like the challenge between the two contractors of the Nasa Commercial Crew Programme, Boeing and SpaceX, is about to declare a winner: the partial failure of the Starliner capsule mission gives Musk’s company the edge. Despite the delays, SpaceX says it’s ready to launch into orbit with its spacecraft the first astronauts from American soil since the Shuttle.

The malfunctioning occurred during the Boeing mission, which initially didn’t look serious, turned out to be a significant setback. Last December, during the unmanned test launch, the Cst-100 Starliner capsule didn’t dock with the International Space Station. The reason for the failed docking seems to be related to a timer malfunctioning of one of the on-board clocks, which might have induced the space vehicle to think it was in a different stage of the mission, immediately after the separation from its Atlas 5 launch vehicle. Nevertheless, after some investigations the NASA detected a second issue related to the valve mapping software, implying a more in-depth review and the addition of new verification tests. Boeing says it’s willing to invest 410 million dollars to add an unmanned test flight, and the NASA will decide whether to accept or refuse such proposal by the end of February. This is a hard blow for the company, because this should have been the crucial year for the first manned test. The situation is different for SpaceX. After identifying the cause which, during a propulsion ground test, had led to the explosion of a Crew Dragon in April 2019, Elon Musk’s company has successfully completed the last, crucial test for its capsule. The test, which was conducted

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last December, aimed at verifying the system’s ability in case of an emergency and guaranteeing manning safety in case of anomalies related to the rocket. After the successful outcome SpaceX is finalizing, along with the NASA, the last checks, which would allow a manned flight for the spacecraft as early as next April.

It isn’t over yet, but ten years after the success of the Dragon cargo – the first private astronaut to dock with the International Space Station – SpaceX has all it takes to get away with this second record in the field of commercial space transport, closing a painful parenthesis of dependency to Russia and its Soyuz, opened nine years ago after the retirement of the Space Shuttle.

The Dragon capsule docks with the International Space Station.

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Lia’s journey

by Davide Camparsi

Sunset on Garda.

The old house on the promontory faces the lake. Behind it, in this summer evening, Verona is sizzling with vibrant electrical lights.

In the nightfall sky, you can see rare falling stars and the wake of some rocket-ferry heading up to the tourist cupolas of the Moon. I raise my hand, nodding, and I hear a quacking laughter beside me.

I smile too. In spite of everything, some things never change: they survive the most improbable journeys.

I shake my head, and an involuntary grimace wrinkles my face.

Even the journey through my memory is a journey, somehow, and tonight I feel particularly keen on taking it. I smell the air, I watch the landscape, I recognize with affection some familiar outlines… and those that have changed in an unexpected way. Or because of our stubbornness.

An upset and nostalgic breath escapes my lips. Nostalgia of apparently simpler times, easy enthusiasms and fierce loves.

At the beginning of the 80’s, in this same house, my sister Lia and I had watched all the episodes and countless repeats of Star Trek, the series on the space voyages of the spaceship Enterprise, on an

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Credits: courtesy of Universal Pictures.

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«Space: last frontier.

These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise»

old, black and white cathode ray tube TV. I think it was that sentence, repeated at the beginning of each episode, that captured our imagination forever.

Space: last frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilization, to boldly go where no man has gone before…

My sister was captivated by these words.

I settled for becoming a fantasy author. On second thoughts, there’s more of a similarity with the immensity of the sky and the wonderful mysteries it might hold.

Same as writing, space holds possibilities.

But I had mentioned my sister. This story is mostly about her. In our family, Lia was the smart one.

Actually, I have no problem in saying her talent was close to genius.

In the wake of her teen’s passions, she enrolled to the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa in the first years of the 90’s, when it was discovered that a pair of related particles could be used to teleport a quantum state from a position to another. During the process, matter in the sender position would lose its structure, transmitting it to unstructured matter in the recipient position. In 1997, when Danilo Boschi at the Sapienza University of Rome managed to carry out the first quantum teleport, Lia was part of the team.

How could it be otherwise? Star Trek, do you remember?

Later on she moved to the United States, where she made a name for herself in the field of long-distance communication thanks to designing space quantum repeaters.

Despite her success, she had a few regrets. Broadening the use of teleport from the quantum field to a tangible action, that is transferring matter and not only quantum states, just as it happened in the TV series, and crossing the limits of the quantum no-cloning theorem, according to which the tran-

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«The other Lia comes close to me, looking for warmth»

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sfer is not able to create a copy of the original quantum state destroyed in the process. But little by little her torment became an obsession, initially small and then bigger and bigger. I happened not to receive any news from her for entire weeks, sometimes months, and when she would contact me again, her voice would sound tired or annoyed.

Mainly weird. In a perennial balance between contained enthusiasm and worrying paranoia. I would hear her complaining about lacking funds, stifling bureaucracy, the dead ends she had to face in her research and the inadequacy of her colleagues. She would rarely make video calls, maybe because, when it happened, my disconcerted face would probably upset her too.

We were drifting apart, like satellites thrown out of their orbits, and I didn’t have any idea of how to help each other. The news that changed this situation came unexpectedly, giving new hope to us both. I took advantage of her enthusiasm to invite her again to my place, before the departure. To re-embrace her with affection, even if I couldn’t help but notice the thinner and thinner skin under my fingers. I remember it was a beautiful day, same as tonight, and we watched together a few episodes of the series, in memory of more light-hearted times. Going back to travelling with James Tiberius Kirk and the vulcan Spock, to the borders of celluloid galaxies; laughing at special effects that showed all their artisanal backwardness before our adult eyes. However, at the end of the screening, Lia insisted to install also here a prototype of receiver she was working on. She was making progresses, she told me; she was cautious and suspicious, but she couldn’t keep it to herself.

She looked more nervous than usual, if possible, but excited.

The following week she moved to one of the new labs on the Moon that China had started to colonize, determined to develop more and more cutting-edge technologies. It was the last time I saw

her in person. I received her first transmission six months later.

I found it at the centre of receiver, one morning, in the room I use as an office and to write: a tiny, but strange, shell, whose spirals were twisted on themselves in grotesque, gruesome ways. I silently stared at it for a long time, my stomach was upset, thinking of what on Earth my sister was doing up there on the Moon. Far from everyone, alone with her obsessions.

Then came the spider. That thing was supposed to be a spider, but as a matter of fact it was just a jumble of legs scattered on the opisthosoma, rather than on the cephalothorax, where they should have been.

And the mouse, oh my God…I still dream of it at night.

As soon as it saw me the little beast tried to drag itself towards me, squeaking, but it only managed to collapse on its flat, hairless side and died a brief moment later. Several “internal” organs were scattered all around.

It went on like this for about a year.

Until the day of the incident, when Lia’s lab experienced that fatal failure of the ventilation system.

The morning when I really lost my sister and heard those clumsy, confused steps, anticipating some frightened childish tears. ··· We observe, for a few instants, the rockets shuttling to the Moon.

Next year they should finally launch the Mars tourism programme.

Evening has fallen. I place the projector towards the white hall of the house, and I switch it on.

The episode starts with the usual, nostalgic sentence, accompanied by an enthusiastic handclapping, which takes me back to a hundred years ago and breaks my heart. But for other reasons.

Space: last frontier…

William Shatner has a wry smile on his face and

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Leonard Nimov greets us, unmoved, with his characteristic gesture of splayed fingers, and he wishes us long life and prosperity.

The other Lia, the other sister of mine, tries to imitate him, with difficulty.

The fingers of her right hand are joined in pairs, twisted. The only blue eye is wide open, due to the effort.

I look at her.

In that iris sky I see a glimpse of her old acumen and, above all, peace. A stillness that moves me deeply and gives me something that I thought I had lost: serenity. While the episode is coming to an end, the other Lia comes close to me, looking for warmth, with some fearless, meaningless stammering.

I look back at her, and I’m amazed once more at the journey she took to come back to me.

It’s an uncertain miracle, but still a miracle. Mine.

I hug her once more, holding her closer, with tenderness.

I kiss her slowly on her sweaty forehead.

In the electrical light brightening the hold house, her golden hair sends ephemeral lightnings that confuse all the endless stars above.

«I’m amazed once more at the journey she took to come back to me»

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THE LAUNCH WINDOW OPENS IN JULY

MARS: SUMMER DEPARTURE, WINTER STAY

by Francesco Rea @francescorea

«Great expectations for the ambitious Chinese attempt»

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Next July marks the opening of the two-year launch window for the probes with destination Mars. Since the 70’s, dozens of probes have been sent towards the Red Planet, and not all of them had a positive outcome. Quite the opposite, in all honestly only the United States and the NASA can boast several successes thanks in particular to their ability, unique to date, to successfully land rovers and landers on Mars.

The Soviet and European attempts weren’t as successful so far. The situation is different for the orbiters; there are several of them by now, and they orbit the Red Planet to obtain as much information as possible.

Reaching Mars doesn’t involve a significant waste of energy, but the oxygen-poor atmosphere and a gravity which is a third of Earth’s cause landing operations to be extremely sensitive. This is one of the reasons why July will be an extremely important month for the exploration of Mars, but next winter will be even more important as three of the four probes taking the trip to the Red Planet will try to place their rovers on the Martian soil. The NASA Mars 2020 probe will live the moment with the certainty of its proven experience, from the Mars Pathfinder to the several rovers which roved and are still roving the Martian soil: Sojourner, Opportuny, Spirit, Curiosity...

The arrival of the ExoMars probe will be more exciting for the European and Russian scientific community. The previous experience with the Mars Express probe and the Beagle lander was unsuccessful; Beagle touched down but never became operational. It went even worse for the Schiaparelli lander, which failed to touch down and crashed to the ground in 2016. Now it’s the Rosalind Franklin rover’s turn to rekindle the Russian-European hopes, with the goal of analysing the subsurface of Mars thanks to a drill and an in-situ assessment which is the result of Italian science and technology. There’s a great deal of expectation for the ambitious Chinese attempt. The HX-1 mission plans to launch an orbiter, a lander and a rover in July 2020, to touch down in February 2021. To be its first attempt, China is making sure not to miss anything.

And the world observes with curiosity, knowing that such ambitious goals had a quite challenging testing ground on the Moon, with the mission Chang’è and the landing on the hidden side of our satellite.

Furthermore, the HX-1 mission is part of a bigger plan that involves also a 2030 mission to bring rock samples back to Earth, such as the Mars Sample Return project for the Americans and Europeans.

Forth on the starting grid, even if with the different goal of placing an orbiter in Mars orbit, are the Arab Emirates with their Mars Hope probe, a UAE unmanned space mission aimed at studying the Martian atmosphere and its climate. The Arab Emirates ‘mission, an emerging country in the world of space, corroborates the overall choice made by the Emiratis to bet on technological research and development in every industry, including the space industry.

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RedCat Devices (RCD), is a fabless semiconductor company established fourteen years ago and thanks to its high expertise in developing semiconductor memories and analog devices for aerospace and nuclear science is a consolidated and esteemed entity in the international space market.

RCD offers innovative solutions for its customers, based on the most performing technologies through proprietary methodologies that have led over the years to possess a rich portfolio of intellectual property (IP), contributing to make the European Space market independent and competitive on the global market. RCD starts from standard and well consolidated CMOS technologies while using its own Radiation Hardening by Design (RHBD) know-how to enhance resistance both to Total Ionizing Dose (TID) and Single Event Effects (SEE). The company profile is always focused on a strongly structured customer-centric approach. Reporting the words of Dr. Cristiano Calligaro, CEO at RCD, “to remain competitive in a so niche market, the Space market, the attention on customer’s needs and expectations is essential” RCD’s working philosophy also requires intense participation involvement in R&D project (like Horizon2020, European Space Agency, Italian Space Agency, and Italian Regional Funds), strongly believing in the international cooperation potential and know-how exchange practices in the Space sector.

Perfect example of the RCD approach both scientific and aimed at customer satisfaction is RAD-PROM project, currently ongoing, and funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The aim of RAD-PROM is indeed the realization of a non-volatile memory cell (NVM) for space applications, resilient to radiation effects, and based on AntiFuse technology, which can be integrated using standard CMOS technologies available in the market. Moreover, the proposed Anti-Fuse cell represents the basic block for the realization of non-volatile rad-hard OTP (One-Time Programmable) memories.

“The demand for electronic components for the Space market is increasingly oriented towards memories not only rad-hard but also with a wide portability and scalability at low costs. These are exactly the main features of the product marketed by RCD” (Dr. C. Calligaro, CEO at RCD).

REDCAT DEVICES

ITALIAN EXCELLENCE FOR SPACE APPLICATIONS

by Editorial Staff @ASI_spazio

Credits: courtesy of RedCat Devices.

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Universe might have produced small oscillations in space-time known as gravitational waves. Credits: MIT.

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T

he gravitational waves, wrinkles in space-time predicted by Einstein and observed in recent times, might contain evidence showing the theory according to which life ‘survived the Big Bang’ thanks to a phase transition.

A change of state that allowed neutrinos to reshuffle matter and antimatter. This is what emerges from a new study published in Physical Review Letters. According to the Big Bang theory provided for by modern cosmology, matter and antimatter should have been present in equal proportions in the primordial Universe and, subsequently, should have triggered an immediate annihilation process which should have caused the entire newly formed Universe to disappear. Since this doesn’t match the reality that we observe, it is thought that a slight imbalance in favour of matter might have caused this latter not to be completely annihilated, allowing the formation of the Universe where we live. Neutrinos come into play in this imbalance.

As matter and antimatter have opposed electrical charges they can’t transform one into the other, unless they are electrically neutral. Neutrinos are the only matter particles free of electric charge that we know, this means that there isn’t necessarily a corresponding antineutrino for each neutrino. This is why the study thinks that neutrinos ‘saved’ the Universe, as in all likelihood they are responsible for the build up of matter in the cosmos.

A hypothesis that would confirm the theory, supported by several researchers, according to which the Universe went through a phase transition – shifting from a much warmer to a much colder state – during which neutrinos might have reshuffled matter and antimatter.

How? Matter behaviour changes according to specific temperatures, known as critical temperatures. As an example, let’s think of what happens to water when it’s boiled to steam or when it’s cooled to ice; or, even better, let’s think of what happens when any metal is cooled at low temperature and completely loses its electrical resistance by means of a phase transition, becoming a superconductor. Just like a superconductor, the phase transition in the primordial Universe might have created a very thin tube of magnetic fields, known as cosmic

AFTER THE BIG BANG

HOW NEUTRINOS SAVED THE UNIVERSE

by Ilaria Marciano @iaia_marciano

«Life ‘survived’ the Big Bang»

strings, which lead to small oscillations in space-time known as gravitational waves. As explained

by Hitoshi Murayama, co-author of the study and professor of Physics at the University of California: “When the Universe might have been from a trillion to a quadrillion times hotter than the hottest place in today’s Universe, it is likely that neutrinos behaved exactly as needed to save it. We have shown that probably they left a background of detectable gravitational wrinkles behind them».

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HOW I FIND YOU THE EXTRATERRESTRIAN

DOES ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MISLEAD?

by Manuela Di Dio @ASI_spazio

«Beyond our knowledge level»

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Can artificial intelligence help us to discover alien civilizations? If the eye plays tricks, can artificial intelligence be misleading too?

This is the question by Gabriel G. De la Torre, a neuropsychologist from the University of Cadiz, Spain, who drew inspiration from an intriguing visual experiment on Ceres planet to test the use of artificial intelligence and look for extra-terrestrial life. The outcomes of the study, published in the Acta Astronautica journal, aim at comparing how human beings and machines recognise planetary images. The idea was born from an image of the Occator crater, on the dwarf planet Ceres, captured by the NASA’S Dawn probe on July 6th, 2018, at an altitude of about 58 kilometres.

The picture shows a mysterious geometric shape in the region of Vinalia Faculae. De La Torre’s team conducted an experiment on the visual perception of this shape, which might have implications on the use of artificial intelligence in the research of extra-terrestrial life by the Seti programme. What lies in the Occator crater? This question was asked to 163 volunteers, inexperienced in astronomy, to understand what geometric shape they saw in the picture. At the same time, the same image was tested by an artificial intelligence system trained to recognise squares and triangles. «Both these persons and artificial intelligence detected a square structure in the images» explains De La Torre. «Furthermore, the artificial intelligence detected a triangle. The square seems to be engraved in the triangle».

The distinctive trait is that «when the triangular option was shown to human beings, the percentage of people saying that they saw it increased significantly», observes the neuropsychologist. The study highlighted how also artificial intelligence might mislead human beings, detecting untrue elements and compromising its usefulness for the Seti programme. Furthermore, artificial intelligence is affected by its supervisors and developers’ prejudices. «On the other hand», explains De la Torre «if artificial intelligence detects something that our mind is unable to understand or accept, it means that in the future it might take us beyond our knowledge level».

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