Which Italian European Space Agency astronaut holds the record for the longest uninterrupted spaceflight of a European astronaut (199 days, 16 hours), Samantha Cristoforetti or Roberto Vittori?
Samantha Cristoforetti Samantha Cristoforetti (] ; born 26 April 1977 in Milan) is an Italian European Space Agency astronaut, Italian Air Force pilot and engineer. She holds the record for the longest uninterrupted spaceflight of a European astronaut (199 days, 16 hours), and until June 2017 held the record for the longest single space flight by a woman until this was broken by Peggy Whitson. She is also the first Italian woman in space. Samantha Cristoforetti is also known as the first person who brewed an espresso coffee in space.
Mercury-Atlas 8 Mercury-Atlas 8 (MA-8) was the fifth United States manned space mission, part of NASA's Mercury program. Astronaut Walter M. Schirra Jr., orbited the Earth six times in the Sigma 7 spacecraft on October 3, 1962, in a nine-hour flight focused mainly on technical evaluation rather than on scientific experimentation. This was the longest U.S. manned orbital flight yet achieved in the Space Race, though well behind the several-day record set by the Soviet Vostok 3 earlier in the year. It confirmed the Mercury spacecraft's durability ahead of the one-day Mercury-Atlas 9 mission that followed in 1963.