On 23 November, Samantha Cristoforetti will fly to the International Space Station on board a Soyuz from Baikonur Cosmodrome.<br /><br />Selected as an ESA astronaut in May 2009, Samantha Cristoforetti joined ESA in September 2009 and completed basic astronaut training in November 2010.<br /><br />In July 2012 she was assigned to an Italian Space Agency ASI mission aboard the International Space Station, to be launched on a Soyuz spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in 2014.<br /><br />This will be the second long-duration ASI mission and the eighth long-duration mission for an ESA astronaut. Samantha will be the first Italian woman to fly in space.
