--- title: The App Friends in Space Let's You Say Hello to Italian Astronaut description: You can communicate with Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from down on Earth canonical: https://time.com/3602182/astronaut-hello-app/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-24T16:03:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T02:19:24.653Z article:section: Science og:title: The App Friends in Space Let's You Say Hello to Italian Astronaut og:description: You can communicate with Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from down on Earth og:url: https://time.com/3602182/astronaut-hello-app/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The App Friends in Space Let's You Say Hello to Italian Astronaut twitter:description: You can communicate with Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from down on Earth twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This App Lets You Say Hello to an Astronaut in Space by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Nov 24, 2014 4:03 PM UTC by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Nov 24, 2014 4:03 PM UTC A new app called [Friends in Space](http://app.friendsinspace.org/) allows you to say “hello” to Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti while she’s stationed in the International Space Station (ISS). If you’re lucky, she might say hello back. That is, if she’s orbiting your region of earth. The online app was created by an Italian design studio called [Accurat](http://www.accurat.it/) in collaboration with Cristoforetti, and let’s you follow her travels and day-to-day work while she’s in space. When she’s not orbiting nearby, users can communicate with other people who are also following her mission. Cristoforetti is a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut who used to be a fighter pilot in the Italian Air Force. She shares a lot of her work on [social media](https://twitter.com/AstroSamantha). \[[_Wired_](http://app.friendsinspace.org/)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3602182/astronaut-hello-app/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3602182/astronaut-hello-app/"},"headline":"This App Lets You Say Hello to an Astronaut in Space","datePublished":"2014-11-24T16:03:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T02:19:24.653Z","description":"You can communicate with Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from down on Earth","url":"https://time.com/3602182/astronaut-hello-app/","keywords":["Space","orbit","Astronaut","iss"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/space/","name":"Space"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3602182/astronaut-hello-app/","name":"This App Lets You Say Hello to an Astronaut in Space"}}]}] ```