engineering

Massimo Trella

Massimo Trella is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Massimo Trella rather than just read about it. In short: Massimo Trella (Rome, April 2, 1932 – Rome, October 15, 2002) was an Italian engineer, with a Master degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering, who has held numerous prestigious institutional positions in Italy and abroad in the space exploration field. He was a member of ASI (Italian Space Agency), director of ESTEC and Inspector General of ESA.

Key takeaways

Massimo Trella belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Massimo Trella to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Massimo Trella from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Massimo Trella (Rome, April 2, 1932 – Rome, October 15, 2002) was an Italian engineer, with a Master degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering, who has held numerous prestigious institutional positions in Italy and abroad in the space exploration field. He was a member of ASI (Italian Space Agency), director of ESTEC and Inspector General of ESA.

Biographical notes Massimo Trella was born in Rome on April 2, 1932 from Serafino and Amalia De Rosa (recognized in 2011 among the Righteous Among The Nations). Second child after Giustino (1930) and before Chiara (1934), he led his childhood in Rome in the Coppedé district. He graduated from the Liceo Classico T. Tasso in 1950 and then enrolled at the University of Rome La Sapienza, Faculty of Engineering, graduating in 1956 first in Mechanics (108/110) and then in 1958 the cum Laude degree in Aeronautical Engineering at the Aerospace Engineering School. After his academic studies he did his military service at the Aeronautical Engineers (GARI) as a second lieutenant. He married Anna Mazzarini on November 28, 1959, by whom he had two daughters, Cristina (1960) and Susanna (1963).

Teaching and research activity M. Trella soon after graduating became an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering. Later he left for the United States in the early 1960s at the request of prof. Antonio Ferri of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Freeport N.Y as assistant professor and then associate professor in the Aeronautics & Applied Mechanics department. The institute housed a major aerospace research laboratory built with the support of the NASA. In parallel with his teaching he did research studies and publications in the field of hypersonic flows of real gases, reentry configurations, thermal protection systems, mechanics of the flight of satellites. In 1964 he returned to Italy starting a collaboration at the La Sapienza University of Rome, obtaining the free teaching in Aerodynamics in 1965. From this moment he became full professor for the courses of Aerology and Rarefied Gas Dynamics at the School of Aerospace Engineering in Rome. In the same year 1964 he was hired by the CNR of Rome as Chief Researcher, becoming director of the Space Activities Service (SAS) in 1971, a position he held until 1973. During the period of work at the CNR he devoted himself to the SIRIO project, the first satellite of Italian communication, with the aim of promoting and coordinating the participation of Italian companies and institutions in the related cooperation programs. In parallel with his research and teaching activities, M. Trella worked as a consultant in the aerospace field for the Minister of Scientific Research Camillo Ripamonti.

Career at the Space Agencies In 1965 M. Trella began his activity as a technical member of the Italian delegation in various international programs. He was appointed vice president of the Technical Planning Staff (TPS) at the CETS (European Conference of Satellite Communication) in London, and later Italian Delegate to the boards of the Space Societies ELDO (European Launcher Development Organization), ESRO (European Space Research Organization) and CSE (European Space Conference) and by the latter he was entrusted with the first exploratory survey for a US-Europe cooperation after the Apollo program.

From 1969 he was appointed consultant for the Italian Minister of Scientific Research and secretary of the CIAs (Interministerial Committee for Space Activities) and joined the study committee on the aeronautical industry at the Ministry of Economy for the definition of the government plan of economic investments. In 1973 he was elected vice president of ESRO and president of the Spacelab Program Committee. In January 1975 he was appointed technical inspector of the newly established European Space Agency (ESA) based in Paris and in July 1978 technical director of ESTEC in Noordwijk (Netherlands). He will hold this role until 1998 to take up the post of Inspector General of ESA at the Organisation headquarters in Paris. Leaving ESA due to age limits in 2000, he returned to Italy for being consultant to ASI (Italian Space Agency) until 2002.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Massimo Trella

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Massimo Trella claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Massimo Trella before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Massimo Trella ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Massimo Trella

In research: Massimo Trella appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Massimo Trella in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Massimo Trella is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1932 births, 2002 deaths, 20th-century Italian engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Massimo Trella outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Massimo Trella in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Massimo Trella means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Massimo Trella out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Massimo Trella in simple terms?

Why does Massimo Trella matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Massimo Trella?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Massimo Trella.