ESA and Pokémon Team Up to Send Pikachu to the International Space Station

In a gesture that bridges childhood wonder and orbital science, the European Space Agency and The Pokémon Company International have sent a Pikachu figure to the International Space Station, timed to World Space Week. The collaboration — spanning a continent-wide exhibition and a designed astronaut experience — reflects a growing understanding among space institutions that inspiring the next generation of scientists requires meeting people within the cultural worlds they already inhabit. It is, at its heart, a wager that imagination is the first instrument of discovery.