Papal call to the Space Station

The 12 astronauts aboard the International Space Station have been busy since Space Shuttle Endeavour arrived at the orbital complex last Wednesday. They installed the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on Thursday for investigating ‘dark matter’ and antimatter, and performed the first spacewalk of the mission on Friday.

On Saturday the astronauts will take a short break for a unique event: a video call with His Holiness Benedict XVI. This will be the first papal call to the Space Station.

ESA astronauts Roberto Vittori and Paolo Nespoli and their colleagues will talk for 20 minutes with His Holiness, who will be in the Foconi Room of the Vatican Library.

Present at the event in the Vatican will be Thomas Reiter, ESA Director for Human Spaceflight and Operations, Enrico Saggese, President of the Italian Space Agency, and General Giuseppe Bernardis, Italian Air Force. The event will be broadcast live.

His Holiness will talk with the crew in English and also address ESA’s two Italian astronauts in Italian.

The media are invited to follow in person the event from the Vatican Television Centre Room Giovanni Paolo II. After the event, journalists will have an opportunity to meet the ESA, ASI and Italian Air Force participants. For accreditation, contact:
accreditamenti@pressva.va or cb@pressva.va

The event will be broadcast by ESA TV and webstreamed at www.esa.int :

- Broadcasters can find the satellite broadcasting parameters at the ESA TV website: television.esa.int

- Internet media can embed ESA’s online web stream or link to the video player, by going to: www.livestream.com/eurospaceagency

- The video will be available for download at ESA's archive on Monday, 23 May: multimedia.esa.int

- Updates on the event will be posted at: www.twitter.com/esa

For further information, contact:

ESA Media Relations Office
Communication Department
Tel: +33 1 53 69 72 99
Fax: +33 1 53 69 76 90
Email: media@esa.int