Brazil launched the first satellite produced with 100% national technology: Amazônia 1. According to Agência Brasil, the launch took place on February 28 through the Satish Dhawan Space Center, in India. The purpose of the satellite is to provide remote sensing data to observe and monitor deforestation, mainly in the Amazon region, as well as to monitor the country's agriculture. "The launch marked two technological advances in the country: the total mastery of the development cycle of a satellite, knowledge dominated by only twenty countries in the world, and the validation of the Multimission Platform (PMM) that works as an adaptable modular system that can be configured from different ways to achieve different goals”, noted the deputy director of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Mônica Rocha. The launch of the satellite is the result of collaboration between the Brazilian space program and India. Amazônia-1 was developed by INPE and the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB), both linked to the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation.

Other space missions marked this month. Landed on Mars: the Hope mission, from the United Arab Emirates, which aims to observe and study the atmosphere and weather events on the Red Planet; the Chinese Tianwen-1 mission, tasked with carrying out scientific observations of the surface and atmosphere of Mars; and NASA's Mars 2020 mission, which includes the Perseverance spacecraft and the Ingenuity helicopter-drone. Perseverance's aims are to look for possible signs of life on the planet, study the geology of the soil and collect rock samples. Ingenuity was the first drone to fly over the planet. For 2022, the plans come from Virgin Galactic, which intends to launch a commercial spaceflight service. "To infinity and beyond!"

19 million units sold worldwide. 19 million stories to tell and retell. This is Vespa that turned 75 in April. In all these decades, Vespa has kept its appearance intact and still maintaining its essence, it has never ceased to be contemporary. The first Vespa was patented on April 23, 1946, by the Italian group Piaggio. World War II had just ended, and Italy was a country to be rebuilt, full of ideas and hope. The Vespa was born in this scenario as an affordable and economical vehicle and soon became a sales success, placing Italy at the center of the post-war movement.

The small motorcycle crossed borders, in 1950 it began to be produced in Germany; in 1951, in the United Kingdom, and in 1954, it arrived in Brazil. Icon of Italian design, the Vespa appeared in classic films such as "Roman Holiday" (1953), in which Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck strolled through the streets of Rome, and "A Sweet Life" (1960), by Federico Fellini, becoming a symbol of the freedom and youth of the time. Since its creation, the Vespa has been continuously produced at the Pontedera factory, between Florence and Pisa.

Padua is the city of "the 3 -less": the nameless saint, the doorless café and the grassless park, as its inhabitants define it, and June 13 is an important day for Padovanos (people born in Padua) because they celebrate "The Saint", without ever needing to specify your name. The unnamed saint is St. Anthony, the patron saint of Padua, beloved throughout the Catholic world, but the Basilica dedicated to him was simply called the Pontifical Basilica of the Saint. The Basilica, which receives millions of faithful every year, preserves the relics of St. Anthony and, this year, also celebrated the return to Padua, for the first time since 1652, of the relic of Anthony's forearm, in the custody of the Basilica della Salute (Basilica of Health) in Venice. The Saint's forearm was the reason for a pilgrimage that ratified the link between Venice and Padua.

The second icon of the city of the Saint is the "doorless café", alluding to Caffè Pedrocchi, which turned 190 this month. Until 1916, the spot remained open day and night, hence the name "Café without a door". The closure in the evening was because the interior lights could easily be a reference for the Austrians during the bombings of the First World War. In fact, in 1848, from a shot fired by Austrian soldiers, a bullet hit one of the inner walls of the café. The hole left by the projectile and a plaque in memory of what happened still keep memories of that day. Finally, the "grassless park", one of the largest squares in Europe, refers to the Prato della Valle which, in its origins, was a swampy land and not the beautiful park with its 78 statues that we know today.

140 years ago, on August 21st, the Mona Lisa went missing. At the Louvre in Paris, where Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece had been on exhibition since 1797, everyone was stunned. No one had moved it. Nobody knew where it would have ended up. The Mona Lisa was just gone, and no one was able to answer the question "Who stole the Mona Lisa?" Two years passed among doubts, uncertainties and hypotheses about the disappearance of Gioconda and without any trace of what really happened that day. What nobody knew is that Mona Lisa was hidden in the room where lived Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian who, upon emigrating to France, went to work at the Louvre and, one day, decided to steal her.

With Mona Lisa hidden under a jacket, Peruggia caught a bus and took her home, returning normally for work. Peruggia wanted to return to Italy the painting he thought had been stolen by Napoleon Bonaparte. In a book, he had read that Napoleon had stolen many works of art from Italy, thus deducing that among the stolen works was Gioconda, the one he saw every day in the Museum. He didn't know the Mona Lisa had been sold to the King of Paris. Returning to Italy, Peruggia asked an antiquarian in Florence to return Gioconda to an Italian museum and, who knows, as a kind of reward, he could have a steady job. The antiquarian, seeming himself in front of the authentic Mona Lisa, warned the police, and Peruggia was arrested. Gioconda returned to the Louvre by train and Peruggia was sentenced to one year in prison, subsequently obtaining a reduction in his sentence.

Since October 14, after 74 years Alitalia is gone for good. The date was marked by its last flight, and the sky lost a bit of color. In 2006, it had already lost one of its stars, that of Varig, the Brazilian airline that went extinct after 79 years. No correlation between the two of them, except that both were the apple of their countries' eyes, and the images of their last flights, in a way, left marks on aviation enthusiasts. On another occasion, these same lovers watched with sorrow the last flight of the legendary Concorde. Who among fans has never dreamed of flying, at least once, aboard the Concorde? The objective here is not to go into the merits or reasons for the decline of these companies, but to record the disappearance of the planes that once lived their Golden Years.

Alitalia, the biggest Italian airline, was a global transport giant, a true benchmark until its inevitable decline. Varig also had strengths of excellence led by its aircraft maintenance, and crew training centers recognized among the best in the world. Each of the aforementioned aircraft left its mark, whether for its design and supersonic speed, for coloring the sky with its tricolor singularity, or for making another star shine in the infinite blue. Alitalia's last flight, AZ 1586 Cagliari-Roma, operated by an A321, put an end to another long history in the aviation sector.

By then, we are immersed in a crisis that affects us at all levels. For two years now, we've been in a health emergency triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic which, if we're lucky, will only extend into the first few months of 2022. After... Who can tell us? In newspaper headlines, the Covid subject is being exhaustively treated, although in an unsatisfactory way. The real function of the press, which would be to inform, ended up being lost in the multitude of facts, inconsistent information, and contradictions and has only served to confuse even more. Are this data being handled within their convenience? Maybe so, but who can tell us? What is known is that 2021 was also a year of trauma, defeat, and loss. A year that changed our lives and changed our essence. We're just learning to move forward, trying to start over. For stubbornness or obstinacy, I don't know, we still want to believe that 2022 can be different, and can offer us a little more hope, new expectations, and some dreams that come true because dreams sometimes come true. However, for now, the world still suffers from Covid-19. For now, the world is in Reanimation. We hope for the best!