Anthea Comellini

Anthea Comellini (born 1992) is an Italian aerospace engineer and reserve astronaut. Comellini completed a PhD on space rendezvous at the Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace, in France, with aerospace company Thales Alenia Space in 2021. She then worked in space navigation operations for the European Space Agency, and the following year, was hired for research and development at Thales Alenia Space. She was chosen as a reserve astronaut in the European Astronaut Corps in 2022.

Early life and family Anthea Comellini was born in Italy in 1992. Her mother is a seamstress and her father is an architect. Her parents named her after a character in a television series played by Andie MacDowell, as they wanted a daughter who had the same curly hair as the character and as themselves.

Comellini grew up in the town Chiari, in the Brescia province of northern Italy. She attended liceo scientifico cittadino Calini, a high school in Brescia. She initially desired to become a writer, and in high school, she won third prize for a poetry award, the Premio Montale. she participated in the 2011 Junior World Orienteering Championships.

Education and career Comellini graduated with a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from the Polytechnic University of Milan in 2014. Her thesis proposed a solution for the "Vision-based navigation for autonomous rendezvous with non-cooperative targets". During the programme, she was a visiting researcher at a laboratory at Polytechnique Montréal, in Canada, for half a year.