ESA astronaut Samantha Christoforetti becomes first TikToker from space; watch video

European Space Agency’s (ESA) decorated astronaut Samantha Christoforetti has added another feather to her cap, shooting the first TikTok video in space. Currently, on her second space mission, Christoforetti arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on April 28 with three NASA astronauts - Robert Hines, Jessica Watkins and Kjell Lindgren - under the Crew-4 mission. In her recent achievement, she posted a video on her TikTok account becoming the first TikToker from what is called ‘the final frontier’. 

Lasting 88 seconds, the video was also shared by ESA and Christoforetti’s official Twitter handles wherein she shared a glimpse of her journey from Earth to the ISS. In the short clip, the European astronaut describes her arrival at the space station and introduces the viewers to the zero-gravity indicator toys-- a stuffed monkey called Etta and a plush turtle named Zippy.

She reveals that the Crew-4 astronauts had an extremely busy schedule after arriving at the ISS as they had to learn as much as possible from Crew-3 in as little time as possible. The Crew-3, which flew to the space station in November 2021, completed its six-month stay and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean on May 6. Commanded by NASA astronaut Raja Chari, the arriving team also consisted of Kayla Barron and Thomas Mashburn from the US and one European astronaut Matthias Maurer.

Finally, ending her historic video, she says, "What questions do you have about life on the space station? Tell me in the comments. And remember: Follow me to boldly go where no TikToker has gone before". Christoforetti's TikTok profile does have some video related to space but this was the first time when she posted content while actually in space. 

More about Samantha Christoforetti

Selected as an ESA astronaut in May 2009, Christoforetti went on her first space mission on 23 November 2014, after being launched from the cosmodrome of Baikonur in Kazakhstan. Under this mission, which was named Futura, she spent 200 days in space under the spaceflight which was just the second long-duration flight opportunity for the Italian Space Agency, the eighth for an ESA astronaut.

Interestingly, she also served as commander for NASA’s 23rd Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO23) mission on a 10-day stay in the world’s only undersea research station, Aquarius.