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Franco Malerba

Italian - (ASI)

Retired

Date of Birth: Oct. 10, 1946
Age: 77


Franco Egidio Malerba (born 10 October 1946 in Busalla, Metropolitan City of Genoa, Italy) is an astronaut. He was the first citizen of Italy to travel to space. After selection in 1989 as a Payload Specialist by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and NASA, he became a staff member of ASI and was assigned to the NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, for training. In September 1991, he was designated Prime Payload Specialist for the TSS-1 Space Shuttle mission. Malerba flew as the first Italian citizen in space on STS-46 (31 July 1992 to 7 August 1992).

Space Shuttle Atlantis / OV-104 | STS-46

National Aeronautics and Space Administration | United States of America
Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA
July 31, 1992, 1:56 p.m.
Status: Success
Mission:

STS-46 was a NASA Space Shuttle mission using Space Shuttle Atlantis and was launched on 31 July 1992 at 9:56:48 am EDT.

Low Earth Orbit
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Falcon 9
Success
17 hours, 22 minutes ago
Türksat 6A
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

Türksat 6A is Turkey's first domestically manufactured geostationary communications satellite. It is to reside in 42° East orbital slot, providing se…


Long March 6A
Success
4 days, 18 hours ago
Tianhui 5 Group 02
Launch Complex 9A - Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

A pair of satellites officially described as for cartographic surveying purposes, details TBD.


Firefly Alpha
Success
5 days, 12 hours ago
FLTA005 (Noise of Summer)
Space Launch Complex 2W - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

Fifth flight of the Firefly Alpha small sat launcher, carrying eight cubesats for NASA's ELaNa 43 (Educational Launch of a Nanosatellite) mission.


Falcon 9
Success
6 days, 7 hours ago
Starlink Group 8-9
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

A batch of 20 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


H3-22
Success
1 week, 1 day ago
Advanced Land Observing Satellite-4 (ALOS-4)
Yoshinobu Launch Complex LP-2 - Tanegashima Space Center, Japan

The Advanced Land Observing Satellite-4 (ALOS-4) is a Japanese satellite designed to observe the Earth's surface using a phased array type L-band syn…