14 DAY TRIAL // Officials with the European Space Agency (ESA) announced recently that work had been completed on the logo associated with astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti's upcoming long-duration mission to the International Space Station. She will be the seventh space flyer to go to space for the Italian Space Agency (ASI).
Her mission was dubbed Futura, and its logo was chosen from a pool of submissions. The author of the final draft is Valerio Papeti, 31, from Turin, Italy. All contestants had to incorporate aspects such as exploration, travel, humanity, dreams, discovery, and wonder into their designs, so that they could be considered for a final selection.
“I derive a strong sense of purpose from being part of the space community, as we build a future in space for we human beings. The name Futura for me is about our collective journey towards that future,” says Samantha Cristoforetti. She will launch to the ISS aboard the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft in November 2014.
The capsule will take off aboard a Soyuz-FG delivery system, from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan. Joining the ESA-ASI flight engineer inside the Soyuz will be NASA astronaut Terry W. Virts, and RosCosmos mission commander Anton Shkaplerov.