This project involves five phases and two dissemination events. The five phases aim to transfer knowledge and know-how in the space sector to ESAT and to the photovoltaic company selected by ESAT for civil applications of the more efficient space photovoltaic cells. That can be achieved with the budget of the present proposal because ESAT has an established and recognized expertise not only in the field of aeronautics but also on renewable energy. The similarity of aeronautics and space engineering allows to reduce the time necessary to transfer the required theoretical knowledge to carry on this project that include the design, assembling and testing of the power space subsystem as well as studies aimed to the civil application of high efficient photovoltaic technology. Using the typical terminology used in project management, the program is divided into eight Work Packages (WPs) from WP 1100 to WP 5200 and they incude: management, 5 phases, Dissemination 1 and Dissemination 2. 

WP 1100 is always present in programming a project. It is the WP on Project management. The other WPs are relevant to the five phases plus the two dissemination events.

WP 2100 - Phase (1): Seminars to show differences between aeronautical and space sectors and terrestrial application of photovoltaic technology and how the higher performance of space photovoltaics can be transferred to civil use.

It will consist on a series of seminars taken by one professor of SIA that will go in presence at ESAT for five days. 

WP 3100 - Phase (2) will consist of more specialized seminars on the theory required to design a satellite power systems. One professor from SIA will go to ESAT for five days. 

WP 4100 - Phase (3) Purchase of components for the power system for small satellites. In this phase there will be no professor mobility and it is planned an elapsed time of 90 days to allow ESAT personnel with the aid of SIA personnel to select the more appropriate components, studied in WP 3100 (phase 2).  

WP 4200 - Phase (4) Practice on designing and integrating parts of a nanosatellite power system. Once the components have been purchased they will be assembled for training and the whole system will be tested electrically. For the successive phase of space qualification it maybe more convenient to space qualify the components separately, in this case they will be disassembled before shipping them to SIA. This activity will be conducted by ESAT with the supervision of an expert professor of SIA that for 8 days will be at ESAT.

WP 4300 - Phase (5) Thermo-vacuum testing of the components for space qualification. The testing activity will be conducted at the LARES Lab of SIA-Sapienza. It will consist of thermal cycling that can be mild, from -20°C to +50°C with ramps of 2°C/min or severe from -50°C to + 70°C with ramps from 3 to 5 °C/min.  The items will be placed on the thermally controlled plates (see figure below) that is fitted inside the cubic thermovacuum chamber for the test. The test typically last two or three days and once programmed it can run automatically thanks to the control system specifically designed for the lab.  As specified in the proposal, liquid nitrogen will be purchased for the test. This activity will be carried out at SIA-Sapienza by two ESAT professors that will stay for four days at SIA-Sapienza. The activity will be supervised by the SIA professors that are  expert in thermovacuum testing. For characteristics of the thermovacuum chamber please visit the page at the link reported at the bottom.

Before or at the beginning of phase (1) the Dean of SIA or his delegate will also go to ESAT to start discussion on further possible cooperations in research and education to be started at the end of the present project. One of the issues will be the possibility to start, at the end of present project, a student exchange program that will bring Tunisian and African students to SIA-Sapienza for strenghten their competences in the space sector that is becoming, also according to the "Mattei Plan", an important sector for all African continent. The aim is not to take human resources from Tunisia but instead to train high level African students to the space sector so that they can bring back to  Africa skills and know-how to spend either in the educational and/or in industrial space field.

At the end of the five phases described, two dissemination events (one at ESAT and one at SIA) will be performed:

WP 5100 - Dissemination n. 1  at ESAT. Three professors from SIA will go to ESAT  for 5 days.  To optimize travel expenses this event will occur in coincidence with the progress meeting foreseen in the second week of June 2025. The dissemination phase is constituted by two different events, one for general public including students of all levels i.e. an open day of one day duration. The other event will run for two-three days and is more  specialized because it is intended for the stakeholders including the partner Green Power Company and/or professors from other African and Italian universities and schools as well as professionals. Both events will be the occasion  to show the educational and the research and laboratory activities of ESAT and how, thanks to the present project, its educational program will extend to the space sector and how space technology can help improving sustainable renevable energy. So the time plan will have 1 day for progress meeting, 1 day for open day, 2 days for specialized meetings and an extra day as a mitigation measure to absorb some unforseen event, for a total of five days;

WP 5200 - Dissemination n. 2 at SIA. Three professors from ESAT will come to SIA for 5 days. Also in this case to optimize travel expenses,  this event will occur in coincidence with the final meeting foreseen in the last week of September 2025. The open day for the general public will be done in coincidence with the European Researchers’ Night that will occur on the last week of September 2025. The rest of the activities are then similar to what done at dissemination n. 2. 

In this section it is described in detail how the cost reported in the "Modello Budget", attached to the proposal and reported here below, for convenience of the reader,  has been calculated. 

The following Gantt chart reports both the work breakdown structure and the cost breakdown structure of the project as well as the human resources required, i.e. the whole project objectives can be reached by working out all the Work Packages (WPs), reported on the left, by spending the amount of funds and using the human resources both written in red in correspondence of each WP. In addition to the costs calculated in the section Cost Analysis, in this chart are added also the costs of local transportation in Rome and Tunis, "spese di accoglienza" and dissemination expenses which totals to the values reported on the second table of "Modello Budget". Furthermore for WP 4100 the cost of the components required for the power system are reported and for  WP 4300 the purchase of liquid nitrogen for thermovacuum testing is also reported. 

Besides those information the Gannt chart provides also a visual time schedule with the key events reported in blue: the Kick-off foreseen on the 9 September 2024, a progress meeting the first week of June 2025 and the final meeting the last week of September 2025. The Project management and the five phases of the project are represented with green horizontal bars while the two dissemination events are the orange bars. On the horizontal axis on top, just below the title are reported some dates as reference. To have a better visual impact on the date of the year, in the bottom are reported bars of lenght of 1 month (with the exclusion of the first and last bars which are shorter) with different colors every quarter. In particular the end of the forth bar corresponds to the end of year 2024 (i.e. 31 of December 2024).

The “Piano Mattei” has been approved by the Italian Parliament with the Decreto-Legge del 15 novembre 2023, n. 161 converted with modifications by L. 11 gennaio 2024, n. 2 (in G.U. 13/01/2024, n. 10).  Article 1 of the law reads (in Italian): 

Comma 1. La collaborazione dell'Italia con Stati del Continente  africano è attuata in conformità a un documento programmatico  strategico, denominato «Piano strategico Italia-Africa: Piano Mattei», di seguito «Piano Mattei».

Comma 2. Il Piano Mattei individua ambiti di intervento e priorità di azione, con particolare riferimento ai seguenti settori: cooperazione allo sviluppo, promozione delle esportazioni  e  degli investimenti, istruzione, formazione superiore e formazione professionale, ricerca e innovazione, salute, etc... (here follows a long list of sectors)

The  comma 2 lists the sectors that are priority.  Very notable is the fact that at the top of the long list of sectors are education, higher education, professional training, research and innovation. This project, proposed to Sapienza  and described in this website, is inspired to those indications of "Piano Mattei" because this project aims to transfer knowledge in the space sector in higher level education through a collaboration with ESAT which is a higher education University.  Furthermore this project aims also to stimulate the interest to the students at lower level education during the open days planned in the two dissemination events programmed in this project. Very useful will be the contribution (at no cost for this project) during these events of the partner ASCO (please visit the relevant page in this website by going to: "Partner in this project"  and then to "ASCO Science Center in Nigeria") that is specialized in informal science (or more generally STEM disciplines) and knowledge transfer to African joung generations. Finally during the two-three days dedicated to more specialized people, professors and stakeholders, during the two dissemination events also professional training and research and innovation will be addressed.

The area into which this project will develop is the aerospace sector. It is intention of the Italian government to give particular emphasis within the "Piano Mattei" to the development of partnerships in the aerospace sector. It is in fact one of the cornerstones of the “Piano Mattei" the development and expansion of the space economy on the Italy-African countries, where the space sector, is continuously growing in both the public and private sectors (see for instance the website below, (in Italian)) .