Start learning 50% faster. Sign in now
Samantha Cristoforetti has been appointed as the first woman to command the International Space Station. She succeeded Russian Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev during a live ceremony from space on September 28, 2022. Samantha will be the fifth and first woman European commander of the International Space Station. About Samantha Cristoforetti Born in 1977, in Milan, Samantha is an Italian European Space Agency astronaut. Cristoforetti holds the record for the longest continuous spacelight by a European astronaut. Until June 2017, she also held the record for the longest single space flight by a woman which was later broken by Peggy Whitson. Cristoforetti is also the first Italian female in space. About International Space Station(ISS) The International Space Station is the largest modular space station in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project that consists of five participating space agencies including NASA, JAXA, CSA, Roscosmos, and ESA.