Status: Active
4/26/1977 –
Nationality: Italian
Type: Government
First Flight: 11/23/2014
Last Flight: 4/27/2022
Samantha Cristoforetti (born 26 April 1977 in Milan) is an Italian European Space Agency astronaut, Italian Air Force pilot and engineer. She holds the record for the longest uninterrupted spaceflight of a European astronaut (199 days, 16 hours), and until June 2017 held the record for the longest single space flight by a woman until this was broken by Peggy Whitson. She is also the first Italian woman in space. Samantha Cristoforetti is also known as the first person who brewed an espresso in space.
European Space Agency - ESA
- Type: Multinational
- Abbreviation: ESA
- Administration: Director General: Josef Aschbacher
- Founded: 1975
- Country: AUT,BEL,CZE,DNK,FIN,FRA,DEU,GRC,IRE,ITA,LUZ,NLD,NOR,POL,PRT,ROU,ESP,SWE,CHE,GBR
The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organisation of 22 member states. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France, ESA has a worldwide staff of about 2,000 employees.
ESA’s space flight programme includes human spaceflight (mainly through participation in the International Space Station program); the launch and operation of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon; Earth observation, science and telecommunication; designing launch vehicles; and maintaining a major spaceport, the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou, French Guiana.
