Second flight into space for Samantha Cristoforetti. This was announced by ESA, which on Wednesday will officially present the mission of the Italian astronaut who belongs to the astronaut corps of the European Space Agency since 2009. In her first “Futura” mission in 2014-15 Samantha had spent 200 days in orbit, carrying out scientific research and operational activity on the International Space Station as a flight engineer for expedition 42/43. Once back on Earth, the astronaut worked at ESA’s European Astronaut Center (EAC) in Cologne, Germany, where she led the ‘Spaceship EAC’ team, made up of students and young professionals working on technological challenges of future lunar missions.
–
Its home away from home
Cristoforetti was then representative of the astronauts in the Gateway project to build a space station in the lunar orbit and in 2019 she was commander of NEEMO23 (NASA’s 23rd Extreme Environment Mission Operations), a ten-day mission in the only undersea research station in the world , the Aquarius. «The International Space Station – he declared – is the outpost of humanity in space. It is an engineering marvel, a place of peaceful and fruitful international cooperation, an interdisciplinary laboratory dedicated to science in a microgravity environment. It is our first step towards a continuous human presence in space. As we prepare for the next step of this decade, which involves permanent human infrastructure in the lunar orbit, I am thrilled and honored to return to the International Space Station, my home away from home.
–
–
February 26, 2021 (change February 26, 2021 | 13:55)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED
–
