“I see around me many amazed scientists and dreaded industrialists when the ExoMars mission is haltedAnd since “the next launch window towards the Red Planet will be in November 2024, there is a December 2026 window, I don’t want to dream about starting the mission since the CEO of the European Space Agency, Joseph Ashbacher, said that to replace all the parts made by the Russians takes three years of work.” “. Talking about it with Adnkronos is astrophysicist Patricia Caravio, director of research at I.
Lawyers Without Borders– The INAF Institute for Astrophysics and Cosmology in Milan, which he also directed from 2011 to 2017. Commenting on the suspension announced by the European Space Agency of the second Mars exploration mission ExoMars on which Europe worked in cooperation with the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Caravio confirms: “I want to make it clear that I am very sensitive to the tragedy in Ukraine, and I know many Ukrainian scientists ” But “I don’t think stopping European space missions will help the Ukrainian scientific community, many of them lose income.” “Surely these are political and principled statements but that They do not help scientists in Ukraine, but on the contrary, they do great harm to our scientific community,” says Caravio. “It will not only take a long time, but also a lot of money to go alone to Europe on this ExoMars mission.” Still mentions the astrophysicist.
caravio which has collaborated on several international space missions and is currently participating in the European Integrated Mission, in the Italian Agile mission and in the NASA Swift and Fermi missions, all of which are in orbit and fully operational, He asserts that, “After all, the American NASA astronaut will return to Earth from the International Space Station on March 30 aboard the Russian SUEZ plane. While Europe no longer launches the “ExoMars” mission. “All this” seems difficult “to me to understand: it is a kind of two-faced Janus. I repeat: as long as we buy gas from Russia, we can not stop science “the Italian scientist continues.” Among other things, this mission to Mars was a “daughter” , among others, to my husband Nani Benami (an astrophysicist and former President of the Italian Space Agency who died in May 2017), and the Italian astrophysicist Simonetta di Pippo (current Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs ed.) who worked on a staff and studied potential missions to explore Mars, as well as the daughter of another former ASI chief, Sergio de Julio, in office from 1996 to 2001.” In short, these are chapters that science has unlocked for more than 20 years. He is also a recipient of the 2021 “Enrico Fermi” award from the Italian Physics Society, says Caravio, among other positions, and is a member of the 2003 Scientific Research Group. (Andrea Aquino)
