L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 4 BARBARA MINAFRA NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS E xactly 50 years after the M oon Landing, that took place on the 20th of July 1969 with the A pollo 11 M is - sion, Luca Parmitano is about to start yet another journey to lead H umanity "Beyond," as the name of the mis s ion its elf, Beyond, states. He reaches the International Space Station, located about 400 km above Earth — or 6 hours and 4 orbits around it — after the launch from the kazako Cosmod- rome in Baikonur, at three o clock in the morning. Armstrong jumped off that ladder about 2 hours earlier, as all the Italians who stayed up to see Man's first step on the Moon remember. "That mission — the Italian Air Force test pilot with 166 days and two walks in space already in his curriculum says just before leaving — changed the course of history and human- ity forever. I think people have a renewed desire to look up to the sky, and also to watch our launch and our missions. I find it won- derful, as an astronaut, that in celebrating this anniversary we will be traveling in space." After having been the first Italian to carry out an extravehic- ular mission with the Volare mission in 2013, he returns on board of the ISS to carry out the ambitious ESA research pro- gram, along with Russian cos- monaut and Soyuz commander Alexander Skvortsov and Ameri- can Andrew Morgan. Over the next six months, 200 internation- al and 50 European scientific experiments w ill take place, including investigations into how the body is influenced by long- term microgravity and how astronauts could remotely con- trol robots during lunar explo- ration. In O ctober, halfw ay through the mission, Parmitano will become the first Italian to command the orbiting station: a post that only two other Euro- peans had before him, the Ger- man Gerst in 2018 and the Bel- gian De Winne in 2009. "What we do in orbit is not just for astronauts or for the ISS program, it's for everyone," Par- mitano explained. "It's for the Earth, it's for humanity and it's the only way to learn what we need, scientifically and techno- logically, to go further." Further into the knowledge and the tech- nology needed for life on Earth and, beyond that in Space, to return to the M oon or reach Mars. "What we are learning in the low earth orbit - says the astro- naut through the channels of the European Space Agency - will allow the next generation to go further and continue to explore. Luca Parmitano goes Beyond Continued to page 6 Luca Parmitano checks the helmet of his astronaut suit. Ph. ESA - S. Corvaja ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano with ESA Director General Jan Wörner on the launchpad at Baikonur as he makes his way to the Soyuz MS-13 spa- cecraft that will transport him and his crewmates to the International Space Station. Ph. ESA - S. Corvaja

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