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Franco Egidio Malerba
Member of the European Parliament
In office 19 July 1994 – 19 July 1999
Personal details
Born	(1946-10-10)10 October 1946 (age 79) Busalla,Metropolitan City of Genoa,Liguria, Italy
Political party	Forza Italia
Education	University of Genoa, Doctor in Physics (1974)[1] Yale University, Ph.D. in Economics[2]
Scientific career
Awards	Schumpeter Prize

Franco Egidio Malerba (born 10 October 1946 inBusalla,Metropolitan City of Genoa, Italy) is an Italianastronaut andMember of the European Parliament. He was the first citizen of Italy to travel to space. In 1994, he was elected to the European Parliament on the lists ofForza Italia, serving until 1999.

• 1965Maturità classica (Lyceum).
• 1970University degree, Electronics Engineer,University of Genoa, Italy, specializing in the telecommunications field (laurea 110/110 cum Laude).
• 1974Doctor in Physics, University of Genoa, (110/110) specializing in Biophysics (after research work at theItalian National Research Council (CNR) and at theNational Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA).

Founding Member of theItalian Space Society.

• 1970-75Research Assistant at CNR's Laboratorio de Biofisica e Cibernetica (Genoa) carrying experimental work on membrane biophysics (using squid axons) and biological membrane modeling with lipid bilayers.
• 1971Lecturer of Cybernetics and Information Theory at the Physics Faculty, University of Genoa.
• 1972Summer Research Assistant at the Nato Saclant Research Center (La Spezia, Italy) working on computer-aided signal detection methodologies for sonar data systems.
• 1972-74Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, Maryland) designing, developing, testing and using a fast micro-spectrophotometer for research on photoreceptors biophysics (using frog retinas).
• 1977-80 In 1977, Dr. Malerba was chosen by theEuropean Space Agency (ESA) as one of four EuropeanPayload Specialist Candidates for the firstSpacelab mission. After this selection he became a staff member at theEuropean Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) of ESA Space Science Department, Space Plasma Physics Division, working in the development, testing, and qualification of ES020 - PICPAB, an experiment in Ionospheric Plasma Physics for the first Spacelab payload, flown in 1983, involving the use of accelerated charged particle beams (cooperation involved French CNRS/CRPE, Norwegian NRDE and ESTEC).

• 1976-89Held technical and technical management positions withDigital Equipment in Italy and in Europe. He worked mainly in the field of multiprocessor systems (Paris 1976, Milan 1977), computer networks engineering (Geneva 1981-85), and telecommunications technology (Rome 1986–88, and Sophia Antipolis in 1989).

Reserve Officer,Marina Militare. Served in 1974-75 (Sottotenente Armi Navali); was assigned to the DestroyerSan Giorgio as Science Lecturer to the Naval Academy, and then to the Mariperman Technical Center in La Spezia working on ELF transmission systems.

Obtained scuba diving license from the Calypso Scuba Club, Geneva (1984).

In 2021, he started startup company SpaceV to research the possibility of growing plants in space.^[3]

Obtained Private Pilot License (College Park, Washington, D.C., 1973) and then the equivalent Italian flying license.

After selection in 1989 as aPayload Specialist by theItalian Space Agency (ASI) and NASA, he became a staff member of ASI and was assigned to the NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, for training. In September 1991, he was designated Prime Payload Specialist for theTSS-1 Space Shuttle mission. Malerba flew as the first Italian citizen in space onSTS-46 (31 July 1992 to 7 August 1992). He is now involved with the ASI's crewed space flight program follow-on activities.

• "DR. FRANCO MALERBA, PH.D. PAYLOAD SPECIALIST"(PDF). NASA. March 2000. RetrievedApril 12, 2021.
• Spacefacts biography of Franco Malerba

 This article incorporatespublic domain material from websites or documents of theNational Aeronautics and Space Administration.

• 1946 births
• Italian astronauts
• Astronaut-politicians
• Living people
• Engineers from Genoa
• University of Genoa alumni
• Space Shuttle program astronauts
• National Research Council (Italy) people

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