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Franco Malerba

Italian - (ASI)

Retired

Date of Birth: Oct. 10, 1946
Age: 78


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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Kinetica 1
Failure
4 hours, 44 minutes ago
DEAR-3 & 10 other satellites
Launch Area 130 - Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

Launched 11 satellites including AZSPACE's DEAR-3 prototype recoverable science experiment spacecraft and the French CASAA-Sat cubesat from the Marse…


Soyuz 2.1b
Success
1 day, 22 hours ago
Resurs-P No.5
31/6 - Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan

Resurs-P is a series of Russian commercial Earth observation satellites capable of acquiring high-resolution imagery (resolution up to 1.0 m).


Falcon 9
Success
4 days ago
Starlink Group 12-2
Launch Complex 39A - Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

A batch of 21 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Electron
Success
5 days, 15 hours ago
StriX Launch 6
Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1B - Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand

Synthetic aperture radar satellites for Japanese Earth imaging company Synspective.


Falcon 9
Success
5 days, 18 hours ago
Bandwagon 2 (Dedicated Mid-Inclination Rideshare)
Space Launch Complex 4E - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

Dedicated rideshare flight to a mid-inclination orbit with dozens of small microsatellites and nanosatellites for commercial and government customers…