Patrizia Caraveo
Entrepreneurs’ occupation of low-Earth orbital space and its environmental impact
Our planet is surrounded by satellites that do extraordinary work in studying climate change, saving lives and mitigating the consequences of natural disasters, providing global communication and navigation services, and helping us answer important scientific questions.
Certainly, rapid technological developments have been accompanied by innovative applications that benefit society. However, as discussed in my book Space Ecology (Springer, 2025), the explosive growth in the number of objects in orbit poses global risks that cannot be ignored. Indeed, negative impacts are already emerging. They range from light pollution, the danger of collisions, and the deposition of toxic gases in our atmosphere to the risk of accidents caused by free-falling debris.
About
Patrizia Caraveo is associated with INAF at the Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica in Milano, where she was Director from 2011 to 2017. She is also Professor of “Introduction to Astronomy” at the University of Pavia, representative of INAF within the CTA Collaboration, and Associate Editor of the Journal of High Energy Astrophysics. Since March 2025, she has been President of the Società Astronomica Italiana (SAIt).
A world leader in the study of high-energy emission from neutron stars, she is well known for her seminal work on Geminga, the first gamma-ray pulsar with no radio emission. Indeed, her career has been based on interdisciplinarity in astronomy, both from space and from the ground.
For the Geminga results, she won the Premio Nazionale Presidente della Repubblica in 2009 and the Enrico Fermi Prize of the Società Italiana di Fisica (SIF) in 2021.
Moreover, she shared the Bruno Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society in 2007, 2011, and 2012 with her Swift, Fermi, and Agile colleagues.
In 2014, she received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Women in Aerospace European Society and was included by Thomson Reuters in the list of Highly Cited Researchers for Space Science.
In 2017, she was awarded the title of Commendatore dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana.
Jinsong Leng
Smart Morphing Materials Structures and Applications in Aerospace
Smart morphing material is defined as a material that can sense and react to environmental conditions or external stimuli (e.g., mechanical, chemical, electrical, and magnetic signals). Due to their large active deformation, enhanced mechanical properties, recoverable features, and controllable remote actuation, these materials have demonstrated significant application potential and practical value in fields such as aerospace, biomedicine, the textile industry, and electronic devices. In this report, we will discuss the development and applications of smart structures in aerospace and biotechnology. We designed a series of space-deployable structures based on shape memory polymers (SMPs) and their composites, which have been successfully applied in the Tianwen-1 Mars probe. A series of SMPs-based skin on morphing aircraft were developed, their deformation behaviors and functional verification were performed. Furthermore, based on 4D-printed SMPs, cardiac occlusion devices and bone tissue structures were developed. In conclusion, shape memory polymers and 4D printing technology exhibit great application prospects in fields such as aerospace structural technology and biotechnology in the future.
About
Prof. Jinsong Leng is a Professor at Harbin Institute of Technology, China. He is a Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a Foreign Member of Academia Europaea, and a Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He serves as the Dean of the School of Future Technology, Director of the Center for Smart Materials and Structures (CSMS), Director of the International Center for Applied Mechanics at Harbin Institute of Technology, and Deputy Director of the Academic Committee of Harbin Institute of Technology. He currently holds the positions of Vice President of the International Committee on Composite Materials (ICCM), Vice President of the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (CSTAM), Vice President of the Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics (CSAA), and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Smart and Nano Materials (IJSNM).
He has been elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Fellow of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Fellow of the Institute of Physics (IOP), Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS), Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals, and Mining (IMMM), and Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), among others.
Luciano Demasi
Aerodynamics and Aeroelasticity of Innovative Wing Systems
Traditional configurations have been adopted for many decades in both civil and military applications. Their design has reached high levels of efficiency due to the progress in both computational and experimental aspects of engineering tools and capabilities.
However, this is also an indication of a limit of the current systems: only incremental enhancements in terms of performance, fuel consumption, and operative costs can be obtained, unless a dramatic departure from the layout of airplanes is introduced.
This talk presents aerodynamic and aeroelastic preliminary design tools/theoretical frameworks tailored for innovative non-planar wing systems, such as Joined Wings, Box Wings, and Truss-Braced Wings.
The challenges and opportunities brought by aeroelastic nonlinearities will also be discussed.
About
Luciano Demasi received his PhD in Aerospace Engineering in 2004 from Politecnico di Torino, Italy, and is currently a professor at San Diego State University (Department of Aerospace Engineering).
He is also an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and author of more than 100 publications in the areas of Aerodynamics, Structures, and Aeroelasticity, including the recently published book Introduction to Unsteady Aerodynamics and Dynamic Aeroelasticity (Springer, 2024).
Luciano Demasi is ranked among the top 2% of authors worldwide in the subfield of Aerospace & Aeronautics. He received the AIAA San Diego Section “Outstanding Contribution to Aerospace Research” award (2023) and the “Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Award” (2025).