All Italian astronauts have participated in various missions on American and Russian spacecraft. The first Italian astronaut was Franco Malerba, who made his first space flight in July 1992 on the American shuttle Atlantis STS-46. Umberto Guidoni became the first Italian astronaut to make two space flights.
The longest space flight (200 days 16 hours 43 minutes) among Italian astronauts was made by Luca Parmitano. Luca Parmitano became the first Italian astronaut to make a spacewalk. In total, Parmitano made 6 spacewalks with a total duration of 33 hours 9 minutes. All of Parmitano's spacewalks were performed in American spacesuits.
Samantha Cristoforetti became the first Italian woman in space. Cristoforetti performed one spacewalk in a Russian spacesuit.
During Paolo Nespoli's stay on the ISS (from December 17, 2010 to May 23, 2011), Roberto Vittori also flew to the station on the shuttle Endeavour STS-134. From May 18 to May 23, 2011, two Italian astronauts were on the ISS simultaneously for the first time. The Endeavour flight was Vittori's third, and he became the first Italian astronaut to make three space flights.
Italian pilot Walter Villadei made a space flight on the Dragon Freedom spacecraft as part of a private crew of the Axiom Space company. In 2023, Walter Villadei made a suborbital flight on the VSS Unity 25 Galactic 01 ship of the Virgin Galactic company.
A total of eight Italian astronauts participated in 14 space flights: 7 of them on Russian spacecraft Soyuz, 5 on American shuttles and two on the commercial SpaceX Crew Dragon.
List of Italian astronauts, their flights, participation in missions to the International Space Station (ISS), spacewalks and other details.
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