«We must hurry, there are only a few months, perhaps weeks, to seize an opportunity that will never be repeated, that of being the leader of the new private era of the space economy and protagonists of the development of the first commercial space station in Earth orbit. The realistic dream is to create an all-Italian orbital module ».
This is how Andrea Pontremoli, CEO of Dallara, the Emilian brand symbol of racing supercars and frontier innovation in aerodynamics and alloys, explains the decision to act as a pioneer of the project that sees the Emilia-Romagna Region allied with the Air Force and Cnr to ride the growth of the aerospace sector and structure a technological and production chain in the Italian aerospace sector.
From the slopes to Space
Dallara Automobili has shortened the distance between Varano de ‘Melegari, a village in the Parma Apennines where it was born 50 years ago, and the International Space Station (ISS) 400 km above the earth since last February, when it took over the former general of the Air Force, Alessio Grasso, to lead the Aerospace & Defense business unit, in the wake of the increasingly intense collaboration with the SpaceX of Elon Musk and Tasi-Thales Alenia Space Italia (collaboration covered by the strictest confidentiality agreements, we only know that concerns both containers and contents of space missions).
And the distances between the Ceno Valley and low Earth orbit have almost disappeared now that in Houston there is Air Force Colonel Walter Villadei, under training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center with European, American, Canadian cosmonauts. Russians, Japanese to participate in the next suborbital missions of Axiom Space (which in 2024 will attack the first module of the first private commercial station on the ISS) and of Virgin Galactic (scientific trip with the CNR scheduled for November and postponed).
The link with the companies of the Via Emilia
That contract commits Villadei to act as a bridge between the companies and research centers of the Via Emilia with US operators and to test the effects of microgravity for them. While in Houston the Region will set up a “Space Economy Observatory” to oversee the management of space activities and push transoceanic collaborations.