ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti returned from her second mission to the International Space Station, known as ‘Minerva’, on Friday 14 October 2022, splashing down in Crew Dragon Freedom in the Gulf of Mexico.

Minerva lasted 170 days, during which Samantha became the first European woman and the fifth European Space Station commander, conducted her first spacewalk, outfitting the European Robotic Arm, and supported numerous European and many more international experiments in microgravity.

From healthcare to materials science, these experiments covered a wide range of disciplines to build our capability to explore beyond our own planet and improve life on Earth.

You can read more about the areas of research Samantha facilitated here.

For a more in-depth overview of Samantha’s Minerva mission, visit our dedicated Minerva mission page.