Tommaso Geraci is an Italian sculptor.
Umberto Guidoni is an Italian astrophysicist, science writer and a former ESA astronaut, being the first European to visit the International Space Station. He is a veteran of two NASA space shuttle missions. He was also a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2004 to 2009, with the Group of the European United Left (GUE/NGL).
Brigadier Roberto Vittori, OMRI is an Italian Air Force officer and an ESA astronaut. After graduating from the Italian Accademia Aeronautica in 1989, Vittori flew in the Italian Air Force. He then trained as a test pilot in the United States.
The Italian Space Agency is a government agency established in 1988 to fund, regulate and coordinate space exploration activities in Italy. The agency cooperates with numerous national and international entities who are active in aerospace research and technology.
Major Paolo Angelo Nespoli is an Italian astronaut and engineer of the European Space Agency (ESA). In 2007, he first traveled into space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery as a mission specialist of STS-120. In December 2010 he again traveled into space aboard the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft as an Expedition 26/27 flight engineer. Nespoli's third spaceflight was on board Soyuz MS-05, which launched in July 2017 for Expedition 52/53. He was also the European Space Agency's oldest active astronaut prior to his retirement in 2019.
The European Astronaut Corps is a unit of the European Space Agency (ESA) that selects, trains, and provides astronauts as crew members on U.S. and Russian space missions. The corps has 13 active members, able to serve on the International Space Station (ISS). The European Astronaut Corps is based at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. They can be assigned to various projects both in Europe or elsewhere in the world, at NASA Johnson Space Center or Star City.
Nicole Marie Passonno Stott is an American engineer and a retired NASA astronaut. She served as a Flight Engineer on ISS Expedition 20 and Expedition 21 and was a Mission Specialist on STS-128 and STS-133. After 27 years of working at NASA, the space agency announced her retirement effective June 1, 2015. She is married to Christopher Stott, a Manx-born American space entrepreneur.
Satoshi Furukawa is a Japanese surgeon and JAXA astronaut. Furukawa was assigned to the International Space Station as a flight engineer on long-duration missions Expedition 28/29, lifting off 7 June 2011 and returning 22 November 2011.
Michael Reed Barratt is an American physician and a NASA astronaut. Specializing in aerospace medicine, he served as a flight surgeon for NASA before his selection as an astronaut, and has played a role in developing NASA's space medicine programs for both the Shuttle-Mir Program and International Space Station. His first spaceflight was a long-duration mission to the International Space Station, as a Flight Engineer in the Expedition 19 and 20 crew. In March 2011, Barratt completed his second spaceflight as a crew member of STS-133.
STS-134 was the penultimate mission of NASA's Space Shuttle program and the 25th and last spaceflight of Space ShuttleEndeavour. This flight delivered the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier to the International Space Station. Mark Kelly served as the mission commander. STS-134 was expected to be the final space shuttle mission if STS-135 did not receive funding from Congress. However, in February 2011, NASA stated that STS-135 would fly "regardless" of the funding situation. STS-135, flown by Atlantis, took advantage of the processing for STS-335, the Launch on Need mission that would have been necessary if the STS-134 crew became stranded in orbit.
Soyuz TMA-20 was a human spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS) and was part of the Soyuz programme. It lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on December 15, 2010, and docked with the ISS two days later. The three-person crew of Soyuz TMA-20 – Dmitri Kondratyev, Catherine Coleman and Paolo Nespoli – represented the ISS partner organizations of Roscosmos, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). Soyuz TMA-20's crew represented half of the members of Expedition 27; the other three members of the expedition arrived at the station on board Soyuz TMA-21 on April 6, 2011. The COSPAR ID of Soyuz TMA-20 was 2010-067A. It is ISS flight 25S.
NASA Astronaut Group 17,, were chosen by NASA in 1998 and announced on June 4 of that year. The group of 32 candidates included eight pilots, 17 mission specialists, and seven international mission specialists who become NASA astronauts. They began training in August 1998.
Expedition 26 was the 26th long-duration mission to the International Space Station. The expedition's first three crew members – one US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts – arrived at the station on board Soyuz TMA-01M on 10 October 2010. Expedition 26 officially began the following month on 26 November, when half of the crew of the previous mission, Expedition 25, returned to Earth on board Soyuz TMA-19. The rest of the Expedition 26 crew – one US astronaut, one Russian cosmonaut and one ESA astronaut – joined the trio already on board when their spacecraft, Soyuz TMA-20, docked with the station on 17 December 2010.
Expedition 27 was the 27th long-duration expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), starting on 16 March 2011. Expedition 27 saw numerous notable events, including the undocking of the Progress M-09M and Kounotori 2 spacecraft, the arrival of the Soyuz TMA-21 and Progress M-10M spacecraft, and the final rendezvous with the ISS of NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour, on its last mission, STS-134. The expedition ended on 23 May 2011 with the departure of the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft, although command of the station was ceremonially handed over to the crew of Expedition 28 on 22 May.
Expedition 28 was the 28th long-duration expedition to the International Space Station, and began on 23 May 2011 with the departure of the members of Expedition 27. The first three members of Expedition 28 arrived on the ISS aboard the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft on 4 April 2011, and were joined on 9 June 2011 by the three other crew members, who arrived aboard Soyuz TMA-02M. The expedition saw a number of significant events, including the final Space Shuttle mission, STS-135, which took place in July 2011. Expedition 28 was superseded by Expedition 29 on 16 September 2011.
The Sicilian Film Festival is a showcase of Sicilian directors and movies created in Miami in 2006 by Emanuele Viscuso. This American display of the Sicilian cinematography underlines the Sicilian cinema, literature and also its links with the international Cinema.
Advanced Research for passive Thermal Exchange (ARTE) is a project intended to create "Thermal Exchange", an experiment for the International Space Station (ISS). It is a heat pipe technology demonstrator in which the heat pipes contain low toxicity fluid. Thermal Exchange has been designed by Argotec in collaboration the Italian Space Agency (ASI). Polytechnic University of Turin participated in the project with the development of a prototype of the electronics and software. On April 4, 2016, the experiment was conducted nominally on board the International Space Station by the American astronaut Timothy Kopra.
Argotec is an aerospace engineering company based in Turin whose research, innovation and product development activities use engineering and computing for space applications and renewable energy systems. Particular attention is also given to the field of Human Space Flight and Operations as well as the development of space exploration systems. Argotec is also concerned with the production of nanosatellites and engineering solutions that can be adopted on the International Space Station (ISS), which also have immediate applications on Earth.
Member of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Sicily, was instrumental along with Paolo Balsamo and his uncle Carlo Cottone prince of Castelnuovo for the improvement of the quality of life of the Sicilian people, leading the project for the abolition of feudal rights in Sicily in 1806 and for the redaction of the Sicilian Constitution of 1812.