Top-20 ISS Twitter accounts

Follow these 20 accounts if you want to know what is going on in the International Space Station in 2012 and beyond.

Experts, space agencies and real astronauts tweet about life onboard ISS, experiments, press events, supply launches, crew changes and orbit corrections. Follow them and you will also see many great photos and videos taken by crew members. A spacetweep must-follow list!

Twitter handle

Name

Why follow?

@ISS_NatLab

NASA National Laboratory

Official NASA account that tweets mostly about US-based experiments on board ISS

@ISS_Research

NASA ISS Research

Official NASA account tweeting about all research on board ISS

@EsaScience

ESA Science

Official ESA account that reports on all science projects for the European Space Agency, much of which takes place inside the ISS

@JAXA_en

Japanese Space Agency

Official JAXA account providing updates in English about Japanese space exploration, much of which is related to the Japanese ISS laboratory and HTV supply flights

Get twitter notifications when ISS passes visibly over the location in your Twitter bio

@ArianeSpace

ArianeSpace

Official account for commercial company that launches ESA ATV ISS supply ships from French Guyana

@SpaceX

SpaceX

Official account for the first commercial ISS supplier, using Dragon capsules that will allow material to be sent back to earth

@OrbitalSciences

Orbital Sciences

Official account for the second company starting commercial supply flights to ISS in 2012, using the Cygnus spacecraft

@KeystoneFlight

Scott Stover (NASA)

The NASA Flight Director for ISS expedition 30

@AstroCoastie

Dan Burbank (NASA)

Expedition 29/30 ISS crew member and commander of Expedition 30

@Astro_Pettit

Donald Pettit (NASA)

Expedition 30/31 ISS crew member

@Astro_Andre

Andre Kuipers (ESA)

Expedition 30/31 ISS crew member

@AkiHoshide

Akihiko Hoshide (JAXA)

Expedition 32/33 ISS crew member

@Cmdr_Hadfield

Chris Hadfield (CSA)

Expedition 34/35 ISS crew member and commander of expedition 35

@AstroMarshburn

Thomas Marshburn (NASA)

Expedition 34/35 ISS crew member

@Astro_Luca

Luca Parmitano (ESA)

Expedition 36/37 crew member, tweeting a lot about his current astronaut training

@AstroRobonaut

Robonaut2 (NASA)

Official NASA account of the only permanent ISS crew member, the robot astronaut

Who would you want to add to this list? Let us know below in the comments!

Remco Timmermans (@timmermansr) is a consultant on sustainable tourism and a space enthusiast. In 2011, he live-tweeted from two impressive launches: the last space shuttle from Kennedy Space Center in Florida and a Soyuz rocket from the Kosmodrome in Kazachstan.