Samantha Cristoforetti(37), Italy's first female astronaut

Samantha Cristoforetti(37)will launch into space from a facility in Kazakhstan this Sunday Nov 23,2014, where she will join Russian Elena Serova, who has been in orbit since September.

Samantha Cristoforetti was a highly-decorated military pilot before she joined the European Space Agency

It will only be the second time that two women have been on board the ISS at once, making the six-member crew one third female.

Russian Soyuz-FG booster rocket, pictured above at its launchpad in Kazakhstan

Samantha Cristoforettis arrival will also bring a new first to space, as she will bring a specially-designed Italian espresso machine along with her.

The so-called ISSpresso machine, which weighs 44lbs, is designed to work in zero gravity, and will be the first device of its kind outside the earth's atmosphere

Samantha Cristoforetti is the first woman assigned to a lengthy space station mission by the European Space Agency, which recently masterminded the Philae rover landing on a comet.

Elena Serova is one of only four Russian women to fly in space and the first to live at this space station. It was 1963 when Russia launched the world's first spacewoman, Valentina Tereshkova, beating America by two full decades, and 1984 when it flew the first world's female spacewalker, Svetlana Savitskaya

Both Elena Serova and Samantha Cristoforetti will spend six months aboard the 260-mile-high complex, following in the footsteps of nine America women who logged lengthy stays

A Russian rocket blasted off today to deliver three new crew members to the International Space Station - including Italy's first female astronaut.

 

Soyuz TMA-15M, holding incoming station commander Terry Virts, with the US space agency Nasa, left the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazahkstan.

 

Also on board for the lift-off at 3am local time (Nov 23,2014 Sunday 9pm GMT) was Soyuz commander Anton Shkaplerov, with the Russian Federal Space Agency