A quick visit to Barga this afternoon by the veteran Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli -- who was invited to the city by Lt. Col. Vittorio Biondi
Of course Paolo had to call in to the unofficial cultural centre of Barga -- Da Aristos, to sample the atmosphere of a bygone age before once again continuing his journey.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has just announced that he is to return to the International Space Station (ISS) in May 2017 which will blast off from the secret Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The veteran Italian astronaut will be making his third trip to the orbital outpost, following missions in 2007 and 2010 – the latter concluding with stunning and unique photography of Shuttle Endeavour docked to the Station.
Benvenuto Paolo; una strana visita oggi a Barga; il ten col Vittorio Lino Biondi ha accompagnato l’astronauta italiano Paolo Nespoli,che tra poco inizierà a preparare la sua terza missione dello spazio, a Barga.
Il Nespoli era accompagnato, in visita di cortesia, da Allison Bollinger, Spacewalk Officer, 2012 RATS Crew, i cui bisnonni sono originari di Barga e per la precisione di Sommocolonia, provenendo dalla famiglia Marzolini.
Il Ten Col Vittorio Lino BIONDI, amico personale del Nespoli con il quale quale ha condiviso un lungo periodo a Beiruth in Libano nel 1983, quando prestavano entrambi servizio presso la brigata paracadutisti FOLGORE, ha fatto incontrare il padre dell’ing. Allison, che vive a Houston, con la signora Nuti, la mamma della Barbara che aiuta in piazza Garibaldi, che di fatto è la cugina del padre di quest’ultimo: una grande emozione a Barga.
Successivamente si sono recati a Sommocolonia , a visitare la vecchia casa dei bisnonni, i Marzolini.
Paolo Back To The ISS:
Nespoli will become part of Expeditions 52 and 53 when he launches on a Russian Soyuz in May 2017.
The Milan native – and Inter Milan fan – was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering in 1988 and a Master of Science degree in aeronautics and astronautics in 1989 from the Polytechnic University of New York. He was awarded the Laurea in Ingegneria Meccanica by the Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy in 1990.
A qualified professional engineer, pilot and an advanced diver, Nespoli served in the Italian army between 1977 and 1984 – becoming qualified as master parachutist, parachutist instructor and special forces operator.
Nespoli left the army to complete his studies and work as a design engineer in Florence, where he conducted mechanical analysis and provided support for qualification of the flight units of the electron gun assembly, one of the main components of the Italian space agency’s Tethered Satellite System.
He joined ESA’s European Astronaut Centre in Cologne as an astronaut training engineer. In 1995, he was part of the EuroMir project at the Agency’s ESTEC establishment in Noordwijk in the Netherlands, where he was responsible for the team that prepared, integrated and supported the payload and crew support computer used on the Russian space station Mir.
The new mission is part of a barter agreement between NASA and Italy’s ASI space agency involving ESA astronauts.
It will be ASI’s third long-duration flight, following Luca Parmitano’s Volare in 2013 and Samantha Cristoforetti’s Futura this year.