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Old April 2nd 05, 10:17 AM
Jacques van Oene
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Default Italy towards the Space Station in the next two missions

01 April 2005
Italy towards the Space Station in the next two missions

The next few months will be an important step forward in the completion of
the International Space Station. Two significant missions involving this
country and Alenia Spazio are now ready.

On 15 April, the ENEIDE mission with the Italian astronaut Roberto Vittori
on board will depart from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

ENEIDE is one of the most important experiments that will be carried out on
board Soyuz during the mission, with the objective of assessing, for the
first time on board an inhabited space vehicle, the reliability under
extreme conditions of the navigation signal provided by the GPS-Egnos
satellite navigation system.

Alenia Spazio has produced the multi-standard receiver for ENEIDE, which
will be managed directly by the astronaut through a dedicated interface
installed on a portable PC.

Approximately 4 hours after launching, Roberto Vittori will activate the
experiment, which will remain operational for the next 36 hours, and it is
estimated that it will continue to function for the duration of the mission,
estimated at approximately one week.

Another significant mission towards the Space Station will occur in May: the
return to orbit of the Shuttle, with the Italian MPLM module built by Alenia
Spazio on board.

During its 12-day mission to the International Space Station, Discovery's
seven person crew will test new hardware and techniques to improve Shuttle
safety and deliver supplies.

It is the first Shuttle mission since the Columbia accident in February
2003.


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Jacques :-)

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