Melfi (disambiguation)

Melfi may refer to:

MELFI may refer to:

Melfi

Melfi is a town and comune in the Vulture area of the province of Potenza, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata.

Geography

On a hill at the foot of Mount Vulture, Melfi is the most important town in Basilicata's Vulture, both as a tourist resort and economic centre.

History

Early and Middle Age history

Inhabited by the Daunians and Lucanians, under the Romans it was included in the area of the colony of Venusia, founded in 291 BC. After the fall of Western Roman Empire, Melfi gained importance in the Middle Ages as a strategic point between areas controlled by the Byzantines and those controlled by the Lombards.

Melfi was captured several times by the struggling powers of the region, until it was assigned to the Norman leader William I of Hauteville. The Hauteville family started from here their conquest of southern Italy, which, in the early 12th century, led to the creation of the Kingdom of Sicily.

In 1059 Melfi became the capital of the Duchy of Apulia. Papal counciles were held in the city in the same year and in 1109. In 1231, Emperor Frederick II proclaimed the Constitutions of Melfi (or Constitutiones Augustales) here, reinforcing control over his ever-expanding territory. He created a bureaucracy of paid officials, who among other things imposed a tax system on the local feudal rulers, who resented it but could not resist.

Minus Eighty Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS

The Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI) is a European-built experiment storage freezer for the International Space Station. It comprises four independent dewars which can be set to operate at different temperatures. Currently temperatures of −80°C, −26°C, and +4°C are used during on-orbit ISS operations. Both reagents and samples will be stored in the freezer. As well as storage the freezer is designed to be used to transport samples to and from the ISS in a temperature controlled environment. The total capacity of the unit is 300 litres.

History

The first MELFI unit, FU-1, was flown to the station in 2006 on Space Shuttle mission STS-121, installed in the Destiny Laboratory Module, and commissioned by Thomas Reiter.

The MELFI flight units were originally designed to be flown fully powered in the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, permitting pre-made experiments to be flown to the station without contaminating or destroying any samples.