It’s been a whirlwind two weeks for the first European female commander of the International Space Station, who is now about to head home to Earth.
Expedition 68 commander Samantha Cristoforetti thanked her crew of “space ninjas” after her brief time in charge of the International Space Station (ISS), during a live change of command ceremony Wednesday (Oct. 12) that aired on NASA Television ahead of undocking tonight and splashdown tomorrow (Oct. 13).
“I just want to say what a privilege it’s been to serve as a commander for this short period of time — short but intense,” Cristoforetti, a European Space Agency astronaut finishing her second long-duration mission, told the 10 other people currently working in space alongside her.Â
In photos: Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti takes Europe’s historic 1st female spacewalk
Three of those 10 are Cristoforetti’s crewmates on SpaceX’s Crew-4 mission, which arrived at the station in April and will depart this evening. It was a busy six months aloft for Crew-4, with Cristoforetti and others conducting numerous spacewalks. Cristoforetti also participated in public engagement opportunities ranging from yoga to TikTok to cosplay depicting characters from “Battlestar Galactica,” “Gravity” and “2001: A Space Odyssey (opens in new tab).”
Speaking to the three rookie spaceflyers aboard SpaceX’s Crew-5 mission, who arrived just six days ago on Oct. 6, Cristoforetti said she enjoyed watching them change from “being new and someone helpless … to already looking like ‘space ninjas’ in just a few days.”
Since taking command of the ISS on Sept. 28, Cristoforetti saw a Russian Soyuz spacecraft depart, the SpaceX Crew-5 group arrive and began preparing for her own return back to Earth along with the rest of SpaceX’s Crew-4. (Her crew’s journey begins with an undocking tonight from the ISS at 7:05 p.m. EDT, or 2305 GMT, for an expected splashdown on Thursday evening.)
Crew-4 conducted about 200 scientific experiments after its arrival at the orbiting lab on April 27, including investigations to prepare for lunar sorties. One experiment, a radiation vest known as AstroRad, will also run on NASA’s Artemis 1, an uncrewed mission that will launch to lunar orbit no earlier than Nov. 14.
Cristoforetti handed over command of the ISS today to Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev. In his own remarks during today’s ceremony, Prokopyev wished the crew a “safe flight, a soft landing— the most important thing.” (He spoke in Russian; translation provided by Google.)
“I want to say that we say ‘Goodbye,'” he added to Cristoforetti, “and ‘See you again.'”
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