On the occasion of the first Italian National Space Day, celebrated on 16 December, the Italian Embassy in Australia organized a conference on the potential offered by the space industry and the scientific and technological collaborations between Italy and Australia. The conference will be held at the Mount Stromlo Astronomy Observatory.
The event is scheduled for 7 December and is called “There’s a lot of space for collaboration. Past, present and future of Italy-Australia common projects to celebrate the National Italian Day Space”, organized together with the Australian National University and the Italian Cultural Institute in Sydney. The workshop will be led by the Scientific Attaché of the Italian Embassy, Marco Lazzarino, while the Italian Ambassador to Australia, Paolo Crudele, will attend the opening with a welcome address.
Participants in the workshop include many researchers and scholars, both Italian and Australian. The main focus of the workshop will be the SpIRIT (Space Industry Responsive Intelligent Thermal) project, financed in 2020 by the Australian Space Agency (ASA) as the first competitively-selected space mission, a project for the design and development of a sophisticated nano-satellite aimed at advancing current satellite capabilities in the areas of high-performance autonomous operations, communications, propulsion and thermal management.
Speakers are Michele Trenti, coordinator of the SpIRIT project; Eduardo Trifoni, head of the National Space Test Facility of the Australian National University(ANU); and Arvind Ramana, director of ASA’s Uplift programme.
Fabrizio Fiore, Hermes project coordinator and SpIRIT project partner, and Lorenzo Natalucci, coordinator of the Ahead European project, both from the National Institute for Astrophysics, will also join online from Italy.
