Massimo Trella (Rome, April 2, 1932 – Rome, October 15, 2002) was an Italian engineer, with a Master degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering, who has held numerous prestigious institutional positions in Italy and abroad in the space exploration field. He was a member of ASI (

Italian Space Agency The Italian Space Agency (; ASI) is a government agency established in 1988 to fund, regulate and coordinate space exploration activities in Italy. The agency cooperates with numerous national and international entities who are active in aerospac ...

), director of ESTEC and Inspector General of ESA.

Biographical notes

Massimo Trella was born in Rome on April 2, 1932 from Serafino and Amalia De Rosa (recognized in 2011 among the

Righteous among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( ) is a title used by Yad Vashem to describe people who, for various reasons, made an effort to assist victims, mostly Jews, who were being persecuted and exterminated by Nazi Germany, Fascist Romania, Fascist Italy, ...

). Second child after Giustino (1930) and before Chiara (1934), he led his childhood in Rome in the ''Coppedé'' district. He graduated from the ''Liceo Classico'' T. Tasso in 1950 and then enrolled at the ''

University of Rome La Sapienza The Sapienza University of Rome (), formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", abbreviated simply as Sapienza ('Wisdom'), is a Public university, public research university located in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1303 and is ...

,'' Faculty of Engineering, graduating in 1956 first in Mechanics (108/110) and then in 1958 the cum Laude degree in Aeronautical Engineering at the Aerospace Engineering School. After his academic studies he did his military service at the Aeronautical Engineers (GARI) as a second lieutenant. He married Anna Mazzarini on November 28, 1959, by whom he had two daughters, Cristina (1960) and Susanna (1963).

Teaching and research activity

M. Trella soon after graduating became an assistant professor in the Department of ''Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering''. Later he left for the United States in the early 1960s at the request of prof. Antonio Ferri of the

Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn The New York University Tandon School of Engineering (commonly referred to as Tandon) is the engineering and applied sciences school of New York University. Tandon is the second oldest private engineering and technology school in the United St ...

, Freeport N.Y as assistant professor and then associate professor in the ''Aeronautics & Applied Mechanics'' department. The institute housed a major aerospace research laboratory built with the support of the NASA. In parallel with his teaching he did research studies and publications in the field of ''hypersonic flows of real gases'', ''reentry configurations, thermal protection systems', mechanics of the flight'' of satellites. In 1964 he returned to Italy starting a collaboration at the

La Sapienza University of Rome The Sapienza University of Rome (), formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", abbreviated simply as Sapienza ('Wisdom'), is a public research university located in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1303 and is as such one of the ...

, obtaining the free teaching in Aerodynamics in 1965. From this moment he became full professor for the courses of Aerology and Rarefied Gas Dynamics at the School of Aerospace Engineering in Rome. In the same year 1964 he was hired by the CNR of Rome as Chief Researcher, becoming director of the Space Activities Service (SAS) in 1971, a position he held until 1973. During the period of work at the CNR he devoted himself to the SIRIO project, the first satellite of Italian communication, with the aim of promoting and coordinating the participation of Italian companies and institutions in the related cooperation programs. In parallel with his research and teaching activities, M. Trella worked as a consultant in the aerospace field for the Minister of Scientific Research Camillo Ripamonti.

Career at the Space Agencies

In 1965 M. Trella began his activity as a technical member of the Italian delegation in various international programs. He was appointed vice president of the Technical Planning Staff (TPS) at the CETS ( European Conference of Satellite Communication) in London, and later Italian Delegate to the boards of the Space Societies ELDO ( European Launcher Development Organization), ESRO ( European Space Research Organization) and CSE (European Space Conference) and by the latter he was entrusted with the first exploratory survey for a US-Europe cooperation after the

Apollo program The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which Moon landing, landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo followed Project Mercury that put the first Americans in sp ...

From 1969 he was appointed consultant for the Italian Minister of Scientific Research and secretary of the CIAs ( Interministerial Committee for Space Activities) and joined the study committee on the aeronautical industry at the Ministry of Economy for the definition of the government plan of economic investments. In 1973 he was elected vice president of

ESRO The European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) was an international organisation founded by 10 European nations with the intention of jointly pursuing scientific research in space. It was founded in 1964. As an organisation ESRO was based on a ...

and president of the Spacelab Program Committee. In January 1975 he was appointed technical inspector of the newly established European Space Agency ( ESA) based in Paris and in July 1978 technical director of

ESTEC The European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) is the European Space Agency's main technology development and test centre for spacecraft and space technology. It is situated in Noordwijk, South Holland, in the western Netherlands, alth ...

Noordwijk Noordwijk () is a town and municipality in the west of the Netherlands, in the provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland. The municipality covers an area of of which is water and had a population of in . On 1 January 2019, the f ...

(Netherlands). He will hold this role until 1998 to take up the post of Inspector General of ESA at the Organisation headquarters in Paris. Leaving ESA due to age limits in 2000, he returns to Italy for being consultant to ASI (

) until 2002.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trella, Massimo Italian mechanical engineers Italian aerospace engineers 1932 births 2002 deaths