1. Samantha Cristoforetti is the second of two women sent into space by ESA and the first from Italy.
26 Facts About Samantha Cristoforetti
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Samantha Cristoforetti took command of ISS Expedition 68 on 28 September 2022.
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Samantha Cristoforetti spent her childhood in Male, in Val di Sole, Trentino, Italy.
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Samantha Cristoforetti was a fan of Star Trek: The Original Series during her childhood, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager as a teenager, which influenced her interest in space exploration.
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Samantha Cristoforetti studied in Bolzano and Trento and graduated from the Technical University of Munich with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.
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Samantha Cristoforetti studied at the Ecole nationale superieure de l'aeronautique et de l'espace in Toulouse, France, and at the Mendeleev Russian University of Chemistry and Technology in Moscow.
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Samantha Cristoforetti graduated in Aeronautics Sciences at the Accademia Aeronautica in Pozzuoli, becoming one of the first women to be a lieutenant and fighter pilot in the Italian Air Force.
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Samantha Cristoforetti is the second Space Camp alumnus in orbit.
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Samantha Cristoforetti has logged over 500 hours and has flown six types of military aircraft: SF-260, T-37, T-38, MB-339A, MB-339CD and AM-X.
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Samantha Cristoforetti was officially selected as an astronaut in 2009 by the European Space Agency, from a population of 8000 applicants.
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On 3 July 2012, the European Space Agency announced that Samantha Cristoforetti was set for a long-duration mission to the ISS in 2014.
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Samantha Cristoforetti stayed 199 days in space and so became the holder of the record for the longest single mission for a woman.
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Samantha Cristoforetti's record was beaten on 5 June 2017 by Peggy Whitson during Expedition 52 and on 28 December 2019 by Christina Koch during Expedition 60.
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Samantha Cristoforetti was the primary operator during the undocking of the ATV-5.
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Samantha Cristoforetti was slated for one, up to possibly three, space walks, however when part of her personal EVA equipment was lost due to the failed launch of the Orbital Cygnus Orb-3 mission in October 2014, those EVAs were scrapped.
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Samantha Cristoforetti has been photographed with references to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on her shirt while her crewmate Anton Shkaplerov had a shirt with 42, the supposed Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything in The Hitchhiker's Guide.
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Samantha Cristoforetti was assigned to fly to the International Space Station a second time in the spring of 2022.
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Samantha Cristoforetti flew on the fourth mission of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, SpaceX Crew-4 on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
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Samantha Cristoforetti was the first person to make a TikTok video on board the International Space Station and some of her onboard videos has been viewed millions of times.
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Samantha Cristoforetti demonstrated loading of tiny drops of biological samples into the device and collection of over 100 million raw data points over several minutes with laser-based sheath-flow analysis.
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On 21 July 2022, Samantha Cristoforetti completed her first spacewalk, which lasted 7 hours and 5 minutes.
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Samantha Cristoforetti was the first non-Russian to use the Orlan spacesuit since Michael Barratt in June 2009, and the first European astronaut to do so since Jean-Pierre Haignere on 16 April 1999.
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Samantha Cristoforetti took command of ISS Expedition 68 on 28 September 2022 and returned to Earth aboard Crew Dragon Endurance on 14 October 2022, which completed the SpaceX Crew-4 mission.
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Samantha Cristoforetti commanded NEEMO mission 23 from 10 to 22 June 2019.
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Samantha Cristoforetti can speak Italian, English, German, French, Russian, and Chinese.
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Samantha Cristoforetti appeared in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, which was held in Turin, in a pre-recorded message from the International Space Station.