With Villadei on the ISS, companies on a commercial mission with the State

Several companies, with great interest from Emilia Romagna, are about to embark with the Italian Air Force Colonel on the Ax-3 mission, a two-week stay aboard the International Space Station to experiment with new materials and systems for well-being in orbit and on Earth. Even pasta.

BY EMILIO COZZI

There is a train not to be missed. It departs in January and heads into space.

In plain terms, Italy is embarking on its first commercial space mission funded with public money. The Air Force has reserved a seat for Colonel Walter Villadei, a cosmonaut trained in Russia and later an astronaut trained in the United States, for a 14-day stay aboard the International Space Station. The mission is organized by the Texan company Axiom Space with a SpaceX ticket, and its launch, initially scheduled for the night between January 9 and 10, is now scheduled for the 17th from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.

It’s an opportunity, the first of many, but being a debut, it is more valuable. And if the record is good only for almanacs, the mission is an open window to what the coming years promise: private access to orbit for anyone who can afford it, research institutions, agencies, private and public stakeholders. With a significant element: thanks to the initiative and state support, several Italian companies can showcase and test their capabilities where, until recently, it would have been denied or more difficult.

Private astronauts and companies in orbit

The operation has cost Italy more than thirty million euros. Since opportunities to launch astronauts within the European Space Agency (ESA) are limited due to the need for a tight turnover and the crowded participation of numerous national contributors to the Agency, the possibility of paying for shorter missions with private actors on the ISS is now open, regardless of international agreements. Among the buyers, obviously, there will be some affluent space tourists, but in the case of Ax3, the discourse is different and, at least in terms of collective benefits, more significant: Axiom’s flight involves representatives of the countries of origin, arriving on board not with one but with many missions.

On SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, with Colonel Villadei, there will be three other passengers: the first Turkish astronaut to fly into orbit, Alper Gezeravci, the Swedish Marcus Wandt, and the commander and former Spanish-American NASA astronaut, Michael López-Alegría, currently with Axiom. Each will bring the interests of their own country and the companies that have embarked to conduct experiments and tests. It is worth noting that the International Space Station is indeed an orbiting laboratory, whose condition of weightlessness on board – otherwise referred to as “microgravity” – cannot be replicated on Earth. It is an environment, strictly speaking, exclusive; and represents a new market.

Designing for space means innovating not only for the benefit of astronauts but also developing products and technologies for those who will never go into orbit. In other words, it means taking care of us, down here.

In light of private investments and almost global interest, it would not be forced to define space today as the realm of the hybrid, in all directions and senses: public and private, scientific and commercial, astronautic and terrestrial. Space is now more than ever an extension of the Earth.

Research and business

Within the mission that Defense has named “Voluntas,” Walter Villadei will bring a dozen scientific experiments into orbit, designed by Italian research institutes and coordinated by the Ministry of Defense and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). They will focus on health, the adaptation of the human body to weightlessness, and exposure to radiation. Along with the European activities, the activities that Villadei will have to initiate or continue on the ISS will be around thirty in total. With the colonel, there will also be companies that have bet on the possibility of reaching such heights and opening up new business prospects.

The Emilia Romagna Region has bet more than anyone, with President Stefano Bonaccini undertaking a trip to Houston to consolidate and promote the industrial system of the Via Emilia. It is not surprising that none of the participants was born as a strictly space company; on Ax 3, technologies from Dallara Automobili will fly, globally known as a producer of supercars; Barilla and three kilos of fusilli will depart for space; Technogym, a fitness giant, and GVM Care & Research will extend the boundaries of their medical control beyond the sky.

Already in 2021, Emilia Romagna had signed agreements with Axiom Space through the Ministry of Defense and the Italian Air Force, marking the start of relations with the Houston Space Hub. The ISS will indeed be only the first step. Soon Axiom will begin building its private station in orbit. After 2030, when the ISS will be abandoned due to age and technological limits, Axiom Space will already have its own base, and at that point, it will be private to own outposts around the Earth to do what was once the monopoly of government agencies. Not surprisingly, the 2021 regional call garnered the interest of non-endogenous excellence brands – or “non-space,” as jargon indicates – ready to discover a new market or, not infrequently, to generate it.

Supercars and fusilli

Dallara, a company from Varano de’ Melegari in the province of Parma, mainly builds racing cars and prototypes using composite materials. People born in the Emilian region, accustomed to imagining new technological solutions. For them, Ax-3 will be an opportunity to test materials beyond the sky and verify their protective capacity from radiation. Technogym, a giant in gym equipment based in Cesena, is tasked with designing a training system that, thanks to artificial intelligence, can calibrate exercise for individuals and their response to microgravity. GVM Care & Research, from Lugo in the province of Ravenna, will monitor health parameters before, during, and after the mission. In particular, the Romagna-based company aims to work with telemedicine, which will be essential during long extraterrestrial stays, for example, in trips to Mars or during operational periods in Earth orbit.

Just a few weeks ago, the Minister of Agriculture and Made in Italy, Francesco Lollobrigida, had presented the Italian Space Food Project, rightly boasting about the quality of Italian food. A display that cannot but start from pasta, and from Emilia, of course: Barilla will launch three kilos of its fusilli with Villadei, famous worldwide, which astronauts can open, rehydrate, and heat. “Without losing the original taste,” as assured by Barilla, including the structure of the pasta, which will not be overcooked. During the pre-launch quarantine, another major brand will provide Italian food to extraterrestrial travelers: Giovanni Rana.

Leaving the Emilian lands, Mental Economy focuses on training the brain. With the support of PwC Italy, it has devised a project to monitor Villadei’s cognitive functions and develop suitable mental training for astronauts. To collect data from some of these activities, the Air Force colonel will wear a tailor-made suit designed by Spacewear, an Italian startup engaged in the aerospace clothing sector. The suit, certified by NASA and an evolution of the one worn by Villadei during his first suborbital mission – Virtute 1 to the edge of space – will be equipped with sensors capable of recording physiological parameters, such as heartbeat, respiratory rate, body temperature, sleep phases, and emotional states.

Finally, AX-3 will also become a photographic event. “To look beyond, we must start from where we are,” says Villadei. “Our journey into space will be a journey into ourselves.” The mission’s only drawback is the time, not programmable, of the inevitable return to Earth.”

Orbit and Beyond

Not a single one of these studies, applications, projects, begins or ends with space alone; the added value is, in fact, the extension of access to orbit for companies that, until a few decades ago, would not have had the opportunity to bring their Research and Development sector into such a critical environment to derive new ideas.

A few examples among the many that can be cited: telemedicine and wearable devices, which will be used for the first Martian colonists, will be the same ones with which a doctor can diagnose a patient in distress during a mission in the Amazon, or a business trip to an elderly person unable to move; not to mention potential new pandemics and the need for lockdowns. Clothing and wearable devices, while spreading among bank employees and Sunday athletes, will become trend-setting designs with influences ranging from cutting-edge technology to fashion. Nothing truly new, after all. And who knows, perhaps the first “lunar” or “Martian” cookbooks will be the offspring of these experiments. With us, traveling throughout the solar system, our culture will also journey.