June 10 – “Rosetta: mankind’s wings on the tail of a comet” is the title of a conference scheduled for Tuesday June 16 at 6:30pm at the Italian Cultural Institute in Lisbon (Rua do Salitre, 146 – 1250-204 Lisbon). The meeting – which is part of a series of events related to science – will star Amalia Ercoli Finzi, Honorary Professor at the Politecnico di Milano. Engineer Emanuele Di Sotto of the GMV Space Systems Unit, will open the conference, which will focus on the European Space Agency mission launched in 2004. Amalia Ercoli Finzi for the past twenty five years has been dealing with the dynamics of space flight and the design of space missions. She is Professor of Orbital Mechanics within the Department of Industrial Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano, and since 2010 Honorary Professor in the same university. She contributed to the development of satellites and probes for planetary exploration, and holds a position at the Italian Space Agency, the European Space Agency and the International Astronautical Federation. She received the gold medal of the Italian Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics and is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics. She is currently responsible for the design of Palamede for micro satellite demonstrations; of the SD2 experiment of the European Rosetta mission on the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko for the drilling of the comet’s nucleus and the collection of samples; and is coordinator of the Italy Team in the international competition Lunar Google X-Prize for the landing a rover on the moon. (PO / red)
