Meloni meets ESA astronaut ahead of his 2027 mission, hailing his selection as a pilot as a mark of Italian excellence in space.Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni received astronaut Luca Parmitano at Palazzo Chigi on 1 July and presented him with an official copy of the Italian tricolour to accompany him on the Artemis III space mission, planned for 2027.  In a statement from Palazzo Chigi, Meloni renewed her congratulations to the Italian Air Force colonel for his prestigious appointment, which she said brought honour to the entire nation and confirmed once again the excellence of Italy in the space sector.   She also handed Parmitano the official chromatic edition of the Italian flag, kept at Palazzo Chigi, to travel with him on the Artemis III mission as a symbol of Italian ingenuity, identity and pride.   Meloni told Parmitano she was "very proud and very curious" about his mission. Parmitano said the two had spoken about Italy and the country's ambition to take a leadership role in Europe in the space sector. Artemis III Parmitano, 49, was selected by NASA in June as pilot of Artemis III, making him the first ESA astronaut to hold a primary operational role on an Artemis mission and the second non-US citizen to fly on the programme, after Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on Artemis II.   He will fly alongside NASA commander Randy Bresnik and mission specialists Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas.   The mission, whose launch is planned for the early summer of 2027, will test moon landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin for the first time in space, conducting rendezvous and docking demonstrations with each in turn, ahead of future lunar landing missions from Artemis IV onwards.   Parmitano noted that training was already under way and would continue throughout 2026 and into early 2027.   He described the mission profile as still evolving, with the primary objectives being to test rendezvous and docking procedures and to experiment with hardware for close-proximity manoeuvring in both automatic and manual modes, including entry, undocking, flyover and separation from the lander spacecraft.   A Sicilian from Paternò, Parmitano has logged 366 days in space across two long-duration missions to the International Space Station and carried out six spacewalks totalling more than 30 hours.   He was trained as an experimental test pilot and has flown more than 2,000 hours across over 20 types of military aircraft.   Photo Palazzo Chigi