Speaker
Description
Planetary exploration began well before the global dissemination of the digital infrastructures that characterize today’s scientific landscape. During the 1960s and 1970s, mission data processing was confined to a few specialized institutions, making the distribution of scientific results dependent on the physical shipping of analog materials. To institutionalize access, NASA established in 1977 the Regional Planetary Imaging Facilities (RPIF) network. In the mid-1980s, the network expanded to Europe, including the Southern-Europe RPIF (S-RPIF) in Rome, hosted at the CNR’s Reparto di Planetologia, later integrated into the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and currently housed within the "Fototeca Coradini" at IAPS institute in Rome.
From the perspective of the history of astronomy, the RPIF Archive represents a documentary heritage of exceptional value, connecting modern space science with the historical material preserved in Italian observatories. The collection preserves crucial milestones of space cartography, including hundreds of lunar maps from the Apollo programs, Martian topographic quadrangles featuring original IAU nomenclature, iconographic data from Mariner and Viking missions, and Soviet documentation dating back to the 1960s. A crucial set is represented by the originals of the telescopic atlases of the Moon where the first orbital and landed robotic missions have been planned.
The archive operates as a living laboratory where the past engages with the future of planetary science. Despite the cessation of official NASA support in 2020, ongoing recovery efforts at IAPS highlight the urgency of preserving these tangible witnesses, testifying to the enduring presence of Italian scientific research on the international stage.