Anthea Comellini facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Anthea Comellini
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Comellini in 2022
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| Born | 1992 (age 32–33) Italy
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| Alma mater | Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace |
| Occupation | Engineer |
| Scientific career | |
| Thesis | Vision-based navigation for autonomous rendezvous with non-cooperative targets (2021) |
| Space career | |
| ESA reserve astronaut | |
| Selection | 2022 ESA Group |
Anthea Comellini (born 1992) is an amazing Italian engineer who works with spacecraft. She is also a reserve astronaut for the European Space Agency (ESA). This means she might go to space one day!
Anthea studied how spacecraft meet up in space, which is called a space rendezvous. She earned a special degree (a PhD) in France in 2021. After that, she helped guide spacecraft for the European Space Agency. In 2022, she joined the European Astronaut Corps as a reserve astronaut.
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Anthea's Early Life
Anthea Comellini was born in Italy in 1992. Her mom was a seamstress, and her dad was an architect. They named her Anthea after a TV character with curly hair. They hoped she would have curly hair too, just like them!
Anthea grew up in a town called Chiari in northern Italy. She went to high school in Brescia. When she was younger, she wanted to be a writer. She even won a poetry award in high school!
Anthea was also a competitive orienteer. This is a sport where you use a map and compass to find your way. She took part in the Junior World Orienteering Championships in 2011.
Education and Space Career
Anthea loved learning about space. She got her first degree in aerospace engineering in 2014. This was from the Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy.
In 2017, she earned two master's degrees. One was in space engineering from the Polytechnic University of Milan. The other was from a special school in France, Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (ISAE-SUPAERO). She also studied signal and image processing in France.
Anthea then worked on her PhD, which is a very advanced degree. She studied how spacecraft can find and connect with other objects in space. This is important for missions where two spacecraft need to link up. She finished her PhD in 2021.
After her PhD, Anthea worked for the European Space Agency. She was a flight dynamics engineer. This means she helped guide spacecraft on their journeys. She worked on missions like BepiColombo, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, Gaia, and Mars Express. These missions explore planets and stars far away!
Becoming a Reserve Astronaut
In 2022, Anthea joined Thales Alenia Space. She works as an engineer in their research and development team. Her job is to help design systems that control satellites. These systems guide satellites and help them navigate in space.
In the same year, Anthea was chosen as a reserve astronaut. This is part of the European Astronaut Corps. As a reserve astronaut, she continues her work as an engineer. But she is ready to start astronaut training if she is needed for a future space mission.
