Giuseppe Colombo

Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo (October 2, 1920 in Padua – February 20, 1984 in Padua) was an Italian scientist, mathematician and engineer at the University of Padua, Italy.

Mercury[]

Colombo studied the planet Mercury, and it was his calculations which showed how to get a spacecraft into a solar orbit which would encounter Mercury multiple times, using a gravity assist maneuver with Venus. Due to this idea, NASA was able to have the Mariner 10 accomplish three fly-bys of Mercury instead of one.^[1] Mariner 10 was the first ^[2] spacecraft to use gravity assist. Since then, the technique has become common.

Colombo also explained the spin-orbit resonance in Mercury's orbit, showing that it rotates three times for every two orbits around the sun.

Saturn's rings[]

Colombo also made significant contributions to the study of Saturn's rings, mostly using ground-based observations in the era before space exploration reached the outer solar system.

Other contributions[]

• Colombo invented the concept of tethers for tying satellites together.
• Colombo participated in the planning of Giotto, the European Space Agency's mission to Halley's Comet, but died before the spacecraft was launched.

Legacy[]

• The Giuseppe Colombo Centre for Space Geodesy in Matera, Italy.
• ESA awards a 'Colombo fellowship' each year to a European scientist working in the field of astronautics

Several astronomical objects and spaceships are named after to honor him:

• The ESA mission to Mercury, which launched at 1:45:28 UTC on 20 October 2018, is named BepiColombo.^[3]
• The Colombo Gap in Saturn's rings.
• The asteroid 10387 Bepicolombo

References[]

External links[]

• Biography from the University of Padua

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