Sophie Adenot filmed 235 days aboard the ISS, one video at a time 🚀📱

Cliquez ici pour lire en français

For 235 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS), a laboratory orbiting about 400 kilometers above Earth, French astronaut Sophie Adenot turned her stay into a digital logbook. On TikTok and Instagram, she shared daily life in zero gravity, her scientific experiments and the difficulties she ran into. With more than 250 videos posted over eight months, she gave the public a window into life in orbit: teaching demos, odd little moments and personal glimpses.

250+ videos to explain life in zero gravity 🚀

Throughout her mission for the European Space Agency (ESA, Europe’s counterpart to NASA), Adenot used social media to show what the usual space imagery doesn’t always convey. Smiling, her hair floating freely, she shared everyday scenes that take on a whole new dimension aboard the ISS.

One of her posts, a shampoo tutorial, drew particular attention. The video explains how astronauts wash their hair where water doesn’t behave as it does on Earth. The moisture used is then recovered and recycled into drinking water.

Everyday gestures turned into teaching tools 🧪

Beyond personal care, she also showed how weightlessness changes simple actions like eating with a spoon, napping or holding yoga poses. The videos make the physical constraints of space life easy to picture.

In July 2026, Adenot even celebrated her 44th birthday on the station, with cakes and candles adapted to the environment. She also launched an educational series called “La science du dimanche matin” (“Sunday morning science”). Its format was inspired by “C’est pas sorcier,” a French TV show that explains science to young audiences, and she used models to run experiments and demos.

The results weren’t always polished. Some experiments took several attempts, and she openly showed the mistakes and the improvisation to her followers. That spontaneity made her content more approachable and revealed the behind-the-scenes reality of science communication.

Social media with no filter 📹

Adenot also shared more personal sides of life aboard the ISS, including details about hygiene and the physical demands of weightlessness. Alongside her posts, she gave numerous interviews and spoke at conferences, relayed by several TV channels. Her media presence went hand in hand with her social media logbook.

Together, short videos, public appearances and scientific demos let her tell the mission from several angles. Space no longer looked like a place reserved for specialists, but like a place where people live, and whose reality can be explained to everyone.

Spacewalks the public could follow 🌌

One of the mission’s defining moments came when Adenot stepped outside the station. On August 18, 2026, alongside NASA astronaut Anil Menon, she became the first French woman to carry out a spacewalk. In total she completed three, for more than 19 hours combined, on station maintenance work.

On the first one, which included work on an antenna, not all objectives were completed, according to AFP. Part of the work was pushed to a later spacewalk for safety reasons. During these outings, the astronaut reportedly flagged limited mobility in her left hand, a detail we could not confirm with an official source.

A view of Earth, and climate worries from orbit 🌍

During her stay, Adenot also saw how heat waves mark the planet’s landscapes. Flying over France, she described yellowed fields and land hit hard by drought.

These observations, shared with her followers, added another layer to her digital logbook. An astronaut’s images and comments from orbit offer a distinctive view of the planet’s condition, even if isolated observations are no substitute for the scientific measurements needed to assess climate phenomena.

Back on Earth: rehab and reunions 🏠

After nearly eight months in space, Adenot said she couldn’t wait to see her loved ones. She also said she was craving a galette bretonne, a Breton specialty from Brittany in western France, as soon as she was back.

She returned on Thursday, October 8, when the Dragon capsule splashed down off California. She is expected to spend roughly three weeks on tests and rehabilitation, since the body needs time to readjust after such a long stay in zero gravity.

With more than 250 videos on TikTok and Instagram, Adenot documented a large part of her experience in space. Her logbook blended science communication, technical demos, personal moments and views of Earth, offering the public direct access to many aspects of life aboard the ISS.

Have TikTok and Instagram become effective tools for making science more accessible? Who are the science creators you follow? Let us know in the comments.