Second mission in sight for Samantha Cristoforetti: the astronaut of the European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing to face her second time aboard the Space Station in 2022 and, according to rumors, could reach her aboard a private vehicle, probably of SpaceX.
The announcement of a second mission for AstroSam was made at the end of 2019, on the occasion of the ESA ministerial conference, and reiterated at the beginning of the year by the president of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), Giorgio Saccoccia.
It will be ASI, on March 3, to host the online meeting in which the announcement will be made official.
In the ESA astronaut corps since 2009, AstroSam is thus preparing for its second mission after Futura, of ASI, in which between 2014 and 2015 it spent 200 days in orbit.
Back on Earth, she worked in Germany, at the ESA European Astronaut Center (Eac) in Cologne, where she led the 'Spaceship Eac' group, with students and young professionals working on the technological challenges of future missions to the Moon.
