CIRA - Centro Italiano Ricerche Aerospaziali S.c.p.A.

CIRA (Centro Italiano Ricerche Aerospaziali) is Italy’s national aerospace research centre, established in 1984 as a public-sector company to advance research and technological development in aeronautics and space. Headquartered in Capua (Campania), CIRA was founded to strengthen Italy’s competitiveness within the European aerospace ecosystem by providing industry and institutions with cutting-edge R&D capabilities. Today, CIRA operates the largest aerospace research infrastructure in Italy, including internationally unique test facilities and state-of-the-art laboratories used by organisations in Italy and worldwide.

Between 2021 and 2022, I supported CIRA in the design and implementation of an integrated, modular thrust standfor micronewton (µN)-level measurements under vacuum, developed for use within CIRA’s Medium Scale Vacuum Chamber (MSVC)—an ultra-high-vacuum space simulator dedicated to electric (ion/plasma) propulsion testing.

The thrust stand was based on a double inverse-parallelogram mechanism to ensure high compliance in the thrust axis with strong off-axis stiffness. The measurement chain combined LVDT inductive sensing for displacement-based calibration with a piezoelectric force sensor and dedicated signal amplification, enabling force measurement from