29/10/2021
During the Closing Ceremony of the 72nd International Astronautical Congress in Dubai, two Alumni (XXXIII Cycle) of the PhD Program in Aeronautical and Space Engineering of Sapienza, Federica Angeletti and Paolo Marzioli, were selected among the 8 finalists of the 2021 International Award Luigi Napolitano. This recognition is awarded annually to a young scientist, under the age of 30, who has contributed significantly to the advancement of aerospace research and presented a paper on this contribution during the congress. Dr. Angeletti was the winner of the award at the IAC closing ceremony, bringing the award to an Italian researcher after 5 years from the last Italian winner.
The research paper by Dr. Angeletti is focused on the studies on the dynamics and control of space structures, carried out in a line of research started over the years of the Doctorate at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering up to the activities held at the Guidance and Navigation Laboratory (GNLab) of the School, under the supervision of Prof. Gasbarri. The manuscript presented by Dr. Marzioli is focused on the preliminary operations of the LEDSAT and WildTrackCube-SIMBA nano-satellites, developed at Sapienza and launched in 2021, and in particular on their LED-based payloads for on-ground optical observations. This activity was part of Dr Marzioli's PhD thesis and the satellites development has been carried out at the S5Lab (Sapienza Space Systems and Space Surveillance Laboratory), coordinated by Prof. Piergentili and Prof. Santoni.