The RECORD @ ASTROSAMANTHA / This is the first Italian woman in … – Il Sole 24 Ore

Samantha Cristoforetti was the first Italian woman to go into space. Thirty-eight years, Milan, grown in Trentino, Samantha is a mechanical engineer and astronaut of ESA, the European Space Agency. It is also captain of the Air Force Italian: has accumulated more than 500 flight hours on six types of military aircraft. She was selected to be an astronaut in 2009 for ESA between 8,500 European candidates. In July 2012 was assigned to the mission of the Italian Space Futura aboard the International Space Station (ISS), which will be launched with the Soyuz spacecraft took place November 23, 2014 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, with the astronauts Terry Virts ( Nasa) and Anton Shkaplerov (Roscosmos). It was the second long-duration mission on the Italian Space Agency International Space Station, the eighth long-duration mission for an ESA astronaut. AstroSamantha Was the seventh Italian astronaut to travel in space.