Cristoforetti, the first European to walk among the stars

She has been the first European woman to venture out on a spacewalk outside the International Station (ISS), 400 kilometers from Earth. The Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, 45 years old, in the company of the Russian Oleg Artemyev (51), connected to the European Robotic Arm (ERA), which is located in the Russian module called Nauka, have worked during the almost seven hours that their space walk lasted . In each orbit around the Earth, for 93 minutes, they alternated light, when illuminated by the sun, with darkness, although in this case they had the support of large batteries to illuminate them. Previously, they spent almost two hours in the decompression chamber, which is used so that the body’s oxygenation can adapt to the Russian Orlan space suit. Outside the ISS, they performed various tasks: they launched ten mini-satellites designed to collect radioelectronic data into orbit, they installed platforms and adapters to work on the Nauka laboratory module, and they launched a telescopic arm to assist in future spacewalks. The spacewalk crowns a dream of Samantha Cristoforetti, who in Italy is something of a heroine. She left on April 27 for five months in orbit, which could be extended aboard the International Space Station. She made her first space mission seven years ago, in which she reached the female record for staying in space in a single flight, 200 days. Born in Milan in 1977, Samantha is married to the French engineer Lionel Ferra, with whom she has two children, ages 5 and 1. Graduated in Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautical Sciences, she was a military pilot captain and after 19 years in the Air Force she left it in December 2019. In addition to Italian, she speaks German, French, English, Russian and defends herself in Chinese. She was selected in 2009 by the European Space Agency from among 8,500 candidates. President Sergio Mattarella granted him the title of Cavaliere. In her first mission, as a good Italian, she showed the world, among other things, how to make an espresso in space. Her skills as a good communicator were also demonstrated by her as the protagonist of the movie ‘Astrosamantha. The woman with the records in space ‘, which premiered in Italian cinemas in 2016 and continues to be shown in schools. In interviews she is only bothered by one question: who takes care of her children when she is in space. She replies that her husband, but she shows her annoyance because that question is never asked of a man. With Astrosamantha, as she is popularly known, she travels a selection of extra virgin olive oils for her study in microgravity conditions. Samantha is conducting experiments in biology, physiology, medicine, biotechnology, and technology demonstrations, including to combat climate change. «One of the experiments investigates antioxidant particles against the degeneration of neuronal stem cells: oxidative stress affects the central nervous system contributing to general pathologies such as Crohn’s disease and Parkinson’s. Another experiment is to look at the influence of the space environment on ovarian and endocrine function.”