International Space Station Virtual Reality Tour Just Got A Lot More Awesome Thanks To Samantha Cristoforetti

Visitors to the International Space Station (ISS) website have been sorely limited in what they can see on the virtual reality tour -- until now. On Thursday, the European Space Agency (ESA) expanded its self-guided exploration tour to include almost every ISS module.

According to CNet, the tour went live in June with a chance to look around the Columbus module, the ESA research pod deployed to the ISS in 2008. Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, the first Italian woman to go into space, took the photos that comprise the tour back in June.

Cristoforetti left the space station last month after spending 199 days up there. This gave her the record for the longest single space flight by a woman, as well as the longest uninterrupted spaceflight by a European. She holds the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, is fluent in five languages, and is the first person to brew an espresso in space.

Her contributions to the self-guided tour now give visitors the chance to explore six modules of the ISS. The only modules the tour is now missing are the Russian modules, which will be released later this year, according to the ESA.

Previous visitors to the ESA website could access photos and videos from the ISS, and the agency had released a series of videos exploring the space station, but this new expansion of the ESA website is one of the most comprehensive and advanced tours of the ISS to date.