“Interior Space”: 25 photographs taken by Paolo Nespoli from the ISS

An exhibition, supported by Leonardo, on technology and humanity

27 November 2020

Leonardo is supporting an extraordinary exhibition at Galleria del Cembalo (Palazzo Borghese) in Rome, featuring 25 unique photographs taken from the International Space Station (ISS).

Celebrating 20 continuous years of human presence on the ISS, the exhibition, called ’Interior Space. A Visual Exploration of the International Space Station’, showcases the photographs taken by ESA's Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli. The shots being premiered at the gallery have been chosen from among the 500,000 actually taken.

The exhibition is free to visit (subject to booking) and is open until 31 January 2021.

The project, springing from the collaboration with the American photographer Roland Miller, who has documented the various American NASA centres from the ground, reveals the interior of the ISS, both in its technical parts and in its artistic side, highlighting, above all, the signs of human presence on the space station: gloves, stickers, a tape measure used to measure height (which changes on the ISS).

Leonardo, through the Thales Alenia Space joint venture, has been significantly involved in the production of key elements of the station, such as the Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules (MPLM), Nodes 2 and 3, the Columbus European laboratory, the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) modules, the Cupola (which allows the astronauts to see what lies outside the ISS), and the Pressurised Cargo Modules (PCM) of the Cygnus spacecraft, dedicated to delivering supplies to the space station. Leonardo’s Electronics Division and Telespazio have also contributed to the work performed for the ISS.

While Nespoli’s photographs capture a moment in time on-board the ISS, space agencies and industries are already thinking about what comes next. And Italy, which has made a significant design and industrial contribution to the first two decades of the International Space Station, is looking firmly to the future. In particular, in celebrating what can safely be considered man’s greatest scientific laboratory outside our planet, Leonardo’s CEO, Alessandro Profumo recalled that the ISS is “a formidable example of man’s industrial and technological ingenuity”. In his opinion, “the countless experiments carried out within the ISS are a great challenge for the industry and for man,” one capable of leading us, in the near future, to the creation of new and increasingly distant orbiting structures, starting with the Moon.

Learn more about Leonardo's contribution to the International Space Station