Futura mission

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03 November 2014

On 23 November, ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti will lift off to the International Space Station and spend almost six months in orbit around our planet.

Her main tasks are to run scientific experiments that cannot be performed on Earth, and to maintain the microgravity laboratory that will be her home. She will be launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan together with cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov and NASA astronaut Terry Virts. Their Soyuz spacecraft will take them to the Station in around six hours, with Samantha sitting to the left of her commander and acting as a flight engineer.

Samantha was previously a fighter pilot in the Italian air force, reaching the rank of captain before joining the ESA astronaut corps in 2009.

During her mission, Samantha will have the honour of being the prime operator for the undocking of ESA’s final Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). The ATV is a vehicle that brings supplies to the crew on the ISS. ATV Georges Lemaître is the fifth in the series of ATV’s, and Samantha will issue the command for it to undock and burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere on re-entry.

Throughout the Futura mission Samantha will run lots of science experiments, as well as educational activities linked to one of her favourite subjects… nutrition.

Samantha's Futura mission