Moltissime congratulazioni al dr. Peruzzini per il conferimento della Medaglia Ugo Croatto 2025 della Società Chimica Italiana. Maurizio Peruzzini, già Direttore dell’Istituto ICCOM e del Dipartimento DSCTM, ed attualmente Ricercatore Emerito del CNR, ha ricevuto questo prestigioso premio come riconoscimento per aver significativamente contribuito all’attività della Divisione di Chimica Inorganica e ad accrescere l'immagine della Chimica Inorganica italiana. La Medaglia viene conferita annualmente in occasione del Congresso Nazionale della Divisione, tenutosi quest’anno a Napoli dal 9 al 12 settembre.

The WINTERTIME experiment has been launched towards the International Space Station (ISS), with the goal of studying the aging mechanisms of the fiber/matrix interface in Ultra-high temperature ceramic matrix composites, candidates as new-generation reusable thermal protection systems for hypersonic travel. This experiment will provide new insights for Italian scientific research and new opportunities for the aerospace industry.

NASA’s SpaceX 31st commercial resupply mission, carrying more than 2,700 kilograms of supplies for the orbiting laboratory—including the 15 candidate materials from the AO-2020-Euromaterialageing program—was successfully carried out.

On November 4, 2024, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft lifted off at 9:29 p.m. (GMT-5) aboard the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida (video).

As scheduled, the spacecraft autonomously docked on November 5^th, 2025 at around 10:15 a.m. at the forward port of the Harmony module of the ISS.

The materials aging experiment is just one of hundreds of investigations conducted aboard the orbiting laboratory. Such research benefits humanity and lays the foundation for future human exploration through the agency’s Artemis campaign, which will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future missions to Mars.

The European Space Agency (ESA), in collaboration with the French National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), within the framework of the AO-2020-Euromaterialageing call, funded with about €4 million, is managing the EMA program. To this end, 128 projects proposing innovative materials for this application were selected. The ESTEC laboratory carried out a testing campaign to ensure that the materials met safety requirements for being launched to the International Space Station (ISS) and handled by astronauts. Only 15 materials successfully passed the safety review and were approved for launch to the ISS. Using the brand-new SESAME and BARTOLOMEO platforms, the materials are currently being exposed to the harsh conditions of low Earth orbit, and the experiment will continue until December 5, 2025.

CNR-ISSMC is participating in this extraordinary opportunity with the aim of studying the effects of space radiation, reactions with atomic oxygen, repeated thermal cycles, and the potential impact of debris on the new class of ultra-high-temperature ceramic matrix composites (UHTCMC) designed and developed at the institute in Faenza. These materials were patented by CNR and validated up to TRL 5/6 during the European project C3harme, after which the technology was transferred to the CNR spin-off K3RX s.r.l. The materials are candidates as potential reusable thermal shields for spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds.

The relationship between microstructure and mechanical properties will be analyzed in detail. Particular focus will be placed on the evolution of the fiber/matrix interface and the mechanical properties after aging. Test samples were produced to simulate both a newly manufactured thermal protection system and one that had already undergone atmospheric re-entry at Mach 5. This was made possible thanks to the project partner, the University of Naples Federico II (UNINA), and the propulsion group of its aerospace engineering department with their SPES facility (Small Planetary Entry Simulator).

The motivation to participate in the EMA 2020 program stemmed from the need to study the long-term effects in LEO on these new materials. Validation of UHTCMC, produced by sintering, as thermal protection systems (TPS) for spacecraft has been achieved up to TRL 5–6 at temperatures above 2000 °C. However, the ability of these materials to re-enter the atmosphere after such a long stay in LEO without losing their structural properties is still unknown. This investigation is both a major challenge and an opportunity to gain crucial insights into this new class of materials.

The Dragon spacecraft will remain docked at the Space Station until December 5th, 2025, when it will depart from the orbiting laboratory and return to Earth carrying the AO-2020-Euromaterialageing materials. After a series of inspections at the ESTEC laboratory, the UHTCMC samples will return to CNR-ISSMC in Faenza for an in-depth analysis of the microstructural changes in the material after aging.

Furthermore, the CNR-ISSMC team announces that on October 2, 2025, they will present the WINTERTIME project and the results of the testing campaign at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Sydney.

Per informazioni:
Luca Zoli
Cnr-Issmc
Via Granarolo 64, 48018, Faenza
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+39/054/6699763