Mattia Balsamini – Raffaele Panizza

Stella Inquieta (Restless Star)

Mattia Balsamini – Raffaele Panizza
Stella Inquieta (Restless Star)

Stella Inquieta is the constantly updated opening chapter of a vast visual, journalistic, archival, and anthropological investigation conducted by photographer Mattia Balsamini and author Raffaele Panizza, aimed at understanding how solar flares affect the vital and cybernetic balance of all things. Solar power, capable of drastically altering the electromagnetic field that governs satellites, infrastructure, and GPS, becomes closely linked to global biological and economic survival.
Through field research, Stella Inquieta leads us to consider the Sun not only as a beneficial source of life, but also as a potential harbinger of destruction and violent change.

AVIO, Colleferro (Rome): A specialist team of winders wearing protective suits and respirators for the most delicate stages of nozzle manufacture. Above their heads, the internal structure of a Vega-C rocket interstage, thanks to which, on 19 May, SMILE (Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) will be launched into orbit.

Mattia Balsamini and Raffaele Panizza, from the project Stella Inquieta

ESA-ESRIN, Frascati: at ESRIN’s Earth Observation Multimedia Centre, a European Space Agency facility specialising in Earth observation, an artist’s impression of the intensity and direction of the Earth’s magnetic field as measured by ESA’s SWARM satellite constellation. The mission control centre is also located in Frascati.

Mattia Balsamini and Raffaele Panizza, from the project Stella Inquieta

AVIO, Colleferro (Rome): The casing of the P120 engine, ready to be shipped to the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, where the propellant required to activate the engine will be filled. The SMILE mission was carried out in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Mattia Balsamini and Raffaele Panizza, from the project Stella Inquieta

AVIO, Colleferro (Rome): In Avio’s Clean Room, an operator working on the liquid propulsion system of the AVUM engine, the fourth stage of the Vega launcher that will carry the SMILE satellite into space on behalf of the ESA. Aim: to study the effect of solar storms on the Earth’s magnetic field.

Mattia Balsamini and Raffaele Panizza, from the project Stella Inquieta

Bio

Mattia Balsamini, trained at the Brooks Institute in California, has been pursuing research on the relationship between technology, work, and identity since 2011.
Raffaele Panizza is a journalist, author, curator, and story designer who writes about current affairs, the environment, technology, culture, and adventure for leading Italian and international magazines.