Title: FROM SHUTTLE TO VEGA: 30 Years of Italian Space Missions
Speaker: Enrico Flamini, former Chief Scientist at the Italian Space Agency (ASI)
Date/Time: Thursday 15th May 2025 at 1900 BST
Venue: BIS Headquarters, 27/29 South Lambeth Road, Vauxhall, London, SW8 1SZ and Online on Zoom
Registration CLOSED
Abstract: Enrico Flamini will tell the fascinating story of his 30+ years in the Space industry from the early days of the Space Shuttle to today’s VEGA launch vehicle and the many other well-known missions in which he was intimately involved.
Biography:
Enrico Flamini graduated in Physics from “La Sapienza” University in Roma in 1977, with a thesis on X-Ray spectroscopy applied to Apollo Lunar Samples. He became a researcher at CNR and then an ESA Research Fellow at the University of Sussex. In 1985 he was employed by Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), the Italian Space Agency, first as a PA (Product Assurance) Manager, then as ASI’s Project Manager on Rosetta, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Cassini-Huygens Missions. He became a co-Investigator on the Cassini Radar and the H-ASI programmes. From 2006 to 2010 he was Chair of the Philae comet lander Steering Committee and from 2008 to 2010: he was Director of ASI’s Observation of the Universe department. In 2012 he became Mission Science Director for ASI’s LARES (Laser Relativity Satellite) which was launched on VEGA and he was ASI’s Chief Scientist from 2010 until his retirement.
Enrico was Emeritus Principal Investigator of the SIMBIO-SYS instrument on BepiColombo, Vice-Chair, Chair and the Italian Delegate of ESA’s Science Programme Committee; Delegate to ESA’s Pprogramme Board for Earth Observation, and, from 2006, Professor of Solar System Exploration at Gabriele D’Annunzio University-in Chieti, Italy. He is a Member of IMEWG, MEPAG, MPSET, JMART, iMARS1, COPUOS ATEIn and was appointed an Officier de l’Ordre National du Mérite de France and was awarded an Exceptional Public Service Gold Medal by NASA. The International Astronomical Union named asteroid 18099 the ‘Flamini asteroid’. He has, so far, published more than 100 papers and 3 books.
