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Paolo Nespoli and crew on tour in ItalyThe crew of the STS-120/Esperia mission will embark on an eleven-days tour of Italy between January 14 and January 25, 2008. From Turin to Milan, from Modena to Pisa, through Livorno, Viterbo an finally Rome, the astronauts will meet authorities, citizens and the press and recall their experience onboard the International Space Station.
In addition to Paolo Nespoli, the Italian ESA astronaut, the crew includes Commander Pamela Melroy and NASA astronauts Clayton Anderson, Scott Parazynski, Doug Wheelock, Stephanie Wilson, George Zamka. They will start their tour in Turin, where they will arrive during the afternoon of October 14, welcomed by representatives of the Italian Space Agency and the European Space Agency. During the following dinner they will also meet the Mayor of Turin, Sergio Chiamparino.
The following day, the seven astronauts will visit ALTEC, an engineering centre created by ASI and Thales Alenia Space to support the Italian built modules launched to the ISS. During the evening they will move to Milan, where on January 16 they will meet the President of the Lombardia region, Roberto Formigoni, and the Mayor of Milan Letizia Moratti. Meanwhile they will also visit the local Science and Technology Museum, Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper and the Dome.
On January 17 they will head towards central Italy, stopping at the Ferrari factory in Modena, passing through Pisa and arriving in Livorno at the end of the day. Livorno is seat to the Paratroopers Brigade of which Paolo Nespoli was a member, that the crew will visit on Friday morning, January 18. Afterwards the group will move to Viterbo to meet with the Italian Army’s Aviation, and then to Rome where they will spend the rest of the week
The astronauts will have a chance to enjoy the wonders of the Eternal City, visiting the Vatican Museums, Galleria Borghese, the Domus Aurea and so on. They will also participate in a live TV show on RAI Tv (on Sunday, Jan. 20) visit ESA/ESRIN in Frascati (Jan. 21), meet the students at the University of Rome (Jan. 22). A meeting with the press in scheduled on Monday, January 21, 12:00 am, at ESA/ESRIN.
The astronauts will also be busy meeting the Pope and high Italian authorities. They will be received by the Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi on Tuesday morning, January 22; by Benedict XVI on Wednesday Morning, January 23; by the Deputy Mayor of Rome and the President of Italy Giorgio Napolitano on Thursday afternoon, January 24.
The astronauts will then leave and travel back to Houston on Friday morning, January 25.
The Italian tour of the STS-120 crew is organized jointly by the Italian Space Agency and the European Space Agency. It is a follow up to the Esperia Mission (October 23 – November 7, 2007), during which Paolo Nespoli “delivered” Node 2 to the International Space Station. Node 2 is a connecting module designed and built in Italy by Thales Alenia Space, under an agreement between NASA, ESA and ASI.
posted 01-14-2008 10:25 AM
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