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26
Space
Rosetta
O
N THE LAST
12
TH OF
N
OVEMBER
,
THE NOW FAMOUS SPACE PROBE LAUNCHED
MORE THAN
10
YEARS AGO BY THE
E
UROPEAN
S
PACE
A
GENCY FINALLY TOUCHED DOWN AFTER
CHASING HIS DESTINATION
,
THE
“67P/C
HURYUMOV
–G
ERASIMENKO
”
COMET
. A
NDREA
T
OSO
LED THE TEAMS OF TECHNICIANS AND ENGINEERS FROM
D
ALLARA WHO COLLABORATED FOR THE
PROJECT BY DESIGNING THE ELECTRIC DRILL THAT PERFORATED THE SURFACE OF THE SPACE
OBJECT
,
TELLS US MORE ABOUT HOW THIS EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE DEVELOPED
a race between the stars
Andrea, this time we will be talking
about something out of this world.
Also, we are old enough to remember
the Space Race of the sixties and the
seventies. Can you tell us more about
the Rosetta mission?
«In the collective imagination, comets are
mysterious celestial objects that can cause
bad luck or revolutions. They have been
studied from the astronomists since the
times of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
Comets are not planets but resurface from
nothing in terms of geography of the solar
system; a comet, with its light tail due to
the debris lost when it gets closer to the
sun, lighten the sky and then goes back to
the space obscurities. Yes, comets have a
little impact on our everyday pace. The
idea behind the mission is simple and
intriguing because it starts from necessity
and intelligence. "Less is more" is a
famous catchphrase in sports and it's very
fitting for this adventure. In the 2000's,
the American Space Program was on an
high with the Shuttle
spaceships, the
International Space Station, and the plans
to conquer Mars. On the other hand, the
European Space Agency and its affiliates,
including the Italian Space Agency, didn't
get enough financing because the nations
were divided almost on everything. The ESA
was looking for a strong idea to justify a
new challenge and put the European
scientific community to test. The idea
behind was: we can't go on Mars, we can't
develop a system of geostationary
satellites, is it possible to land
on a comet with just a few
economic resources and thanks
to the ideas of our great
scientists? The spark started
from there. The Milan
Politecnico University, and the
Aerospace engineering
department led by Professor
Amalia Ercoli Finzi, proposed
themselves as a scientific guide and
found first the support of ASI, then the
consensus of ESA. A specialized company
by the name of Tecnospazio, now Galileo
Selex, received the task of coordinating the
times, costs and specifications of the entire
project in addition the retrieval of
experienced companies in
the field of
composites and light materials. By the
way, transporting a single gram for a
distance of 400 millions of kilometers is
quite expensive if we think that even the
light takes 20 minutes from there.
Tecnospazio started searching in the
motorsport panorama because this is the
closest field to Space
explorations in
terms
of materials, quality
controls, manufacturing. The
lever is only slightly simplified.
Among many companies, the found
Dallara. Honestly, we haven't been the
first choice: Ferrari declined the offer
because they were too busy in Formula
1».
It's been a phenomenal an fascinating
challenge, especially for people who
had Thor Heyerdahl and Neil Armstrong
as their hero. What are the engineering
challenges behind this kind of
exploration?
«Of course, the technical challenge as ben
for its most part... mental!. Imagine to
conduct a mental experiment, without a
laboratory able to replicate at the same
time all the conditions in which
the object must operate.