{"id":3894,"date":"2018-02-23T13:09:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T12:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/inaf-asi-and-nasa-are-getting-closer-in-sardinia\/"},"modified":"2018-02-23T13:09:00","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T12:09:00","slug":"inaf-asi-and-nasa-are-getting-closer-in-sardinia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/inaf-asi-and-nasa-are-getting-closer-in-sardinia\/","title":{"rendered":"INAF, ASI, and NASA are Getting Closer in Sardinia"},"content":{"rendered":"

February 22, 2018, might be remembered as one of the “historic” days for the Sardinia Radio Telescope,<\/strong> one of the most modern facilities of the National Institute for Astrophysics<\/strong>. For the first time, the president of the Italian Space Agency<\/strong>, Roberto Battiston<\/strong>, visited the large Sardinian antenna in San Basilio<\/strong>, which will soon become fully operational in the “Sardinia Deep Space Antenna<\/strong>” (SDSA<\/strong>) configuration. It will be used in NASA’s Deep Space Network<\/strong> as a communication tool between Earth and the numerous interplanetary probes<\/strong> traveling through the Solar System, as well as for new and ambitious missions planned for the Moon<\/strong> and Mars<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

In addition to the numerous INAF staff already present at the antenna,<\/strong> led by station manager Andrea Orlati,<\/strong> Emilio Molinari<\/strong>, director of the INAF-Cagliari Astronomical Observatory<\/strong>, and Federica Govoni<\/strong>, a researcher from Cagliari recently appointed head of the national unit coordinating international radio astronomy collaborations and all Italian INAF radio telescopes: Noto<\/strong>, Medicina<\/strong>, and SRT<\/strong>, were present to welcome the guests.<\/p>\n

The ASI delegation, in addition to president Battiston<\/strong>, included Anna Sirica<\/strong> (General Director), Enrico Flamini<\/strong> (Head of Solar System Exploration Programs), Antonio Sposito<\/strong> (Head of Advanced Training), and Salvatore Viviano<\/strong> (SDSA project manager).<\/p>\n

The purpose of the visit was mainly operational. It was necessary to detail concrete actions and specific timelines for the agreement that INAF President Nichi D\u2019Amico<\/strong> (who has already issued a statement about this visit) and his counterpart Roberto Battiston<\/strong> recently signed for the use of part of the antenna time for space exploration<\/strong>. SRT is indeed a formidable tool for these activities, as demonstrated on September 15, 2017, during the Cassini probe’s splashdown on Saturn (here is Nichi D\u2019Amico’s editorial on that occasion). <\/p>\n

After the introductions, the INAF and ASI delegates moved on to a phase of exchanging information and ideas to best organize, with mutual benefit, the grand official inauguration event of the Sardinia Deep Space Antenna configuration<\/strong> planned for this spring. <\/p>\n

Federica Govoni<\/strong> emphasizes the importance of coordination between INAF and ASI at a particular moment in SRT’s life: \u201cThe path to achieving this common goal,\u201d says Govoni, \u201cwill not be technically simple: the organization times are tight while the scientific recommissioning phase that the Sardinia Radio Telescope is currently undergoing after the active surface upgrade will still require a lot of work from INAF researchers, technologists, and engineers. In fact,\u201d she continues, \u201cafter a significant technological upgrade completed at the end of summer 2017, all the new equipment of the Sardinia Radio Telescope is in the calibration phase with rigorous scientific tests by the INAF staff to quickly achieve the power and precision that make it even more competitive worldwide. Therefore, a meticulous and constant work of negotiation and distribution of ‘tasks’ between the two major entities is already underway to be ready and in sync for the ‘SDSA’ configuration inauguration,\u201d concludes Federica Govoni. <\/p>\n

The inauguration will most likely take place in May and will see the arrival in Sardinia of numerous representatives and technicians from NASA<\/strong> and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The president of the Italian Space Agency, Roberto Battiston, visits the Sardinia Radio Telescope, implementing the agreement between INAF and ASI for the use of the antenna in NASA’s Deep Space Network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oa-cagliari.inaf.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}