The Italian Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai will host an international conference on the space economy
As part of the activities of the Italian pavilion dedicated to the Space Week at Expo 2020 Dubai, the Italian-based Leonardo company organized the "International Conference on Lunar Space Economy: The First Steps Towards the Interplanetary Nomadic Generation".
The exploration of the moon was the main theme of the event as the next major step for space agencies around the world as well as for private entrepreneurs. Return to the lunar surface is a critical factor in the development of the interplanetary nomadic generation that will protect humanity on Earth and may also be called in the future to guide us towards new places to live in space exterior.
“Our collective ambitions in the space sector directly affect our planet and its future, so we strive to make transplanetary exploration more sustainable using lunar resources, but there is a second goal: improving the quality of our lives on Earth,” said Alessandro Profumo, CEO of Leonardo. Essential resources would be scarce and expensive for the Earth's environment.
The event witnessed the participation of astronauts, representatives of agencies, institutions, academic bodies, and a group of industries who discussed several main topics, most notably: exploration, mining, restoration of technologies and potential solutions for a living habitat on the moon, while the participants focused on ways of cooperation to make the equation 2 + 2 = 5 seem logical and in order to Moving forward in the upcoming lunar adventure, the need for the Leonardo Group’s expertise is evident in the areas of infrastructure, artificial intelligence, robotics, communication, services and operations, as Thales Alenia Space (a joint venture between Thales 67% and Leonardo 33%) contributes to building the Moon Gate for the “Artemis” program for NASA and building systems A mission to Orion, the spacecraft for astronauts.
It is expected that Leonardo's robotic systems equipped with advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence techniques will provide great support for the establishment of a sustainable "lunar village", where robotic arms and drills will help in building structures and digging and extracting resources from under the moon's surface, especially since Leonardo has a leading role in the space robotics industry, having already developed The drills used in the "Rosetta" and "Exo Mars 2022" missions, and now "Prospect" for the "Luna 27" mission, also designed robotic arms for the "Mars sample return mission" program, and finally Telespazio (Leonardo 67% Thales 33%) was recently selected by the agency. European space for the study of lunar communications and navigation infrastructure.
Among the speakers at the Leonardo event were Bill Nelson, Administrator of NASA, Josef Asbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency, Giorgio Sacuccia, President of the Italian Space Agency, and Hazza Al Mansouri, the first Emirati astronaut aboard the International Space Station, who spoke in a panel discussion with Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano. Dr. Sarah Al-Maaini, scientific team leader for the Emirates Moon Exploration Project, Paolo Glicenti, Commissioner-General of the Italy Pavilion for Expo 2020 Dubai, in addition to researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, the University of Colorado Mines and professionals from mining companies.