Italian ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti will soon fulfil the role of commander of the International Space Station, taking over from fellow Expedition 67 crew member Oleg Artemyev. Since beginning her Minerva mission in April 2022, Samantha has served as lead of the United States Orbital Segment (USOS), overseeing activities in the US, European...

In a small town in the province of Como in Lombardy, specifically in Fino Mornasco, there is a group of 180 young people who have decided to deal with Space. Space in all senses, the cosmic one and the one that contains all material things, as the definitions found in physics books recite. The same books that teach how every material object can occ...

Italy is participating thanks to an important cooperative effort between the Italian Space Agency, Italian industry and the many small and medium-sized companies involved in this ambitious international program. The Artemis-1 mission, scheduled for launch on Aug. 29, will see the giant U.S. Space Launch System (SLS-1) carry the Orion capsule around...

 The samples of Italian extra virgin olive oil have reached the International Space Station, thanks to a project included in the framework of the agreement between the Italian Space Agency and CREA, in collaboration with Coldiretti and Unaprol-Consorzio Olivicolo Italiano. As part of its role as National Agency, ASI promoted the project and, in the...

Cinzia Zuffada is a veteran of the Space sector and one of the most illustrious representatives of Italian excellence abroad. Electromagnetic engineer, NASA JPL’s Deputy Scientist, principal investigator of two NASA ROSES awards, leading scientist for the Global Navigation Satellite Systems reflectometry (GNSS-R) project. As President of the Italia...

The project was devised by FIS president Franco Maria Ricci and officially unveiled last week in Rome at the Foundation’s latest annual International Wine Culture Forum. ‘About four months ago I thought we should do some proper experiments to understand what happens to wine and vines in space. Eventually, I decided that this year’s FIS Forum had to...

An Italian astronaut joined a Russian cosmonaut in a rare spacewalking show of unity Thursday, as tensions over Ukraine continued to ricochet back home. Italy’s Samantha Cristoforetti teamed up with Russia’s Oleg Artemyev to work on the International Space Station’s newest robot arm. The 37-foot (11-meter) mechanical limb — contributed by the Europ...

Last week, eight years after her first historical mission, our Samantha Cristoforetti – lovingly known as Astro Samantha – returned to Space. At 9.52 a.m. Italian time, on the 27th of April, SpaceX’s Freedom brought her, and three other astronauts, to the ISS. But Italy’s love story with Space didn’t start with Samantha. If you think of it, we’ve b...

Last week, four Italian olive oils were sent into orbit on the International Space Station (ISS), and they are now flying at an altitude of approximately 400 kilometers above Earth. They were brought into space by the European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who returned to the ISS for her second mission, Minerva. “This year, S...

Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti is preparing to take the social media platform Tiktok to space, inviting people to follow her "to boldly go where no TikToker has gone before!" Cristoforetti, popularly known in Italy as AstroSam, will join three other crew members on the Minerva mission to the International Space Station (ISS), with take-of...