Samantha Cristoforetti First Italian Woman in Space

On November 24th 2014,Samantha Cristoforetti became the first Italian woman to launch into outer space. She is headed for a six-month stay on the Soyuz spacecraft that launched from Kazakstan, along with Russian crewmate Anton Shkaplerov and American crewmate Terry W. Virts. During there first communication from the ISS Mission control, Cristforetti mother asked her if space was all she had imagined, to which she replied, “much better.”

Not only is Milan-born Cristoforetti the first Italian woman to go on a mission to outer space, she is also the third female astronaut in the European Space Agency. Cristoferetti and her crewmates joined three other crew members who arrived at the ISS in September: Commander of NASA, Barry Wilmore, and Alexander Samoukutyaev and Elena Serova of Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency.
On this mission, Samantha is flying as an ESA astronaut for Italy’s ASI space agency under a special agreement between ASI and NASA. Together, the astronauts make up Expedition, which will last until March 2015.

The name of Samantha’s mission is ‘Futura’, a title that highlight the groundbreaking research in weightlessness she is to complete during her time in space. In total, there are ten Italian research projects that await the team, among which is a 3D printer that may allow future researchers to produce different types of spare equipment.

In true Italian form, Cristoforetti brought an specially designed espresso machine by Lavazza with her to space, in order to conduct a research experiment that would investigate the behavior of liquids. The “ISSpresso” machine is a one of a kind, revolutionary invention that is designed to withstand pressures of up to 400 bar. Giuseppe Lavazza, vice-president of the coffee company, says that the taste itself will be indistinguishable from that bought in Earth-bound coffee shops. Cristoforetti will be the first to ever use a machine of this nature in space.

Cristoforetti, the captain of the Italian Air Force, grew up in the Trento region of northern Italy. She studied for her master’s degree in Munich where she became certified as a mechanical engineer. While earning her master’s degree she wrote a theses on solid rocket propellants, which she completed during a 10-month stay in Moscow Mendeleev University of Chemical Technologies. Her key research interests are nutrition and health, and her research is sure to be as groundbreaking as her landing in space itself.