Italians plan Lunar Telescope
Mark Trulson / 11:56 pm January 9th, 2006
Inventor of the first telescope, Galileo would be proud of his fellow countryman.
An article titled “Italians to build telescope on moon” was posted on the Italian news Agency’s (ANSA) website and appears to have been picked up by several other international news sites as well. The gist of the story is that the Italian Space Agency (ASI) wants to build and launch a lunar telescope.
Some assembly will be required – since the launch vehicle in mind is the relatively small Vega rocket, the telescope will have to be flown in modules over several launches.
The telescope will be built by robots and positioned in a lunar crater to give a new perspective on the Earth, said the head of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), Sergio Vetrella.
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The planned cost of this project is an already earmarked 150 million euros and a hope that the European Space Agency will help with launching. The idea is to have the first robots up between 2010 and 2012,
“Over the next few years we’ll launch the pieces of the huge telescope which should be completed within 15 years,” the ASI chief said.
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I’ve not had any luck finding more information on this project and would love to hear from anyone that can fill me in. Lacking any skill at reading Italian, I didn’t get far with a brief search of the space agency’s website.