Giada Meogrossi, who holds a degree in Electronic Engineering, began her adventure at Leonardo in 2012, moving to Tuscany to work at the Campi Bisenzio site, near Florence. Over the years, she has contributed to the development of the drills and robotic arms for the Martian rovers, as well as the control and power distribution units for the Artemis 1 mission, whose objective is to return humans to the Moon. After relocating to Nerviano (Milan) in 2019, she also focused on atomic clocks, the technological heart of Galileo, Europe’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Today, she leads a team of around 40 people.
Among the many technologies that she has worked on, Giada cannot choose which one has impressed her the most. From temperature maps, created with the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer sensor, used on TV during weather forecasts, to robotics and atomic clocks. In addition to the Passive Hydrogen Maser (PHM), which is on board Galileo, her team is now working on a new technology together with the Italian Institute for Research in Metrology. This is the rubidium atom clock, which uses the POP (Pulsed Optically Pumped) technique of pulsed laser interrogation of the atomic transition, for which Leonardo will oversee the development of the entire clock.
According to Giada, the beauty of Space technologies lies in their impact on everyday life. “Although they seem like such distant systems, in reality they are not. They allow us not only to learn about the unknown, by exploring the cosmos, but also - as in the case of meteorology, satellite navigation systems and robotics - to see their concrete applications in our daily activities.”