Fu fra i più brillanti allievi ed erede culturale del matematico Giuseppe Colombo e fu membro fondatore del CISAS (Centro Interdipartimentale di Studi Spaziali).
Collaborò a lungo con la NASA, fino a diventare Principal Investigator (Theoretical and Experimental Investigation of TSS Dynamics) per le missioni Tethered Satellite System I e II (Satellite al guinzaglio).
Opere
The Italian participation to the Tethered Satellite System (con Giuseppe Colombo, 1982) Tether motion after failure (1982) Order of magnitude evaluation of the lifetime of a free tether in orbit (1988) Tethered gravity laboratories study - The center-of-gravity management concept (1989) Coupling of tether lateral vibration and subsatellite attitude motion (1992) Further developments in the harmonic analysis of TSS-1 (1992) Theoretical and experimental investigation of TSS-1 dynamics (1993) Equilibrium configurations in a tethered atmospheric mission (1993) «Incipit» dell'analisi sperimentale della dinamica del TSS-1 (1993) TSS core equipment (1994) Effects of Orbit Eccentricity on TSS-1 Pendulum-Like Oscillations (1998)