A plush Pikachu spent 67 days aboard the International Space Station this spring, completing roughly 1,040 orbits of Earth between April 11 and June 27, as part of a new partnership between the European Space Agency and The Pokémon Company, according to Nintendo Life and Space.com. The toy flew alongside French ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, who was completing a stint on the station that included more than 200 experiments and three spacewalks, and photos released by ESA in September show it floating through the station's domed Cupola observation module.
The flight itself wrapped up months ago, but its public rollout is only now getting underway, timed to World Space Week, the UN-backed outreach campaign that runs October 4-10. ESA and Pokémon unveiled the collaboration with a run of pop-up exhibitions at the agency's own facilities in Paris, Rome, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and the UK through late September and early October, each displaying photos and footage of the orbital plush alongside space-agency education material aimed at students.
From here, the same Pikachu — or a touring stand-in — moves to a longer circuit of science museums across Europe running from this month through April 2027, with stops planned at the Cité de l'Espace in Toulouse, the Science Museum in London, the Deutsches Museum in Nuremberg, the Euro Space Center in Belgium and Space Expo in the Netherlands, among other venues, according to the Nintendo Life report. The Pokémon Company has paired the tour with retail tie-ins, including a Pokémon Center exhibition-branded plush released October 1, and a related in-game event in Pokémon GO.
It's a lighter use of a long-running space tradition: astronauts and space agencies have flown plush toys on crewed missions for decades, often as a visual cue — bobbing visibly once a craft reaches orbit — before they're repurposed afterward as outreach props back on Earth. ESA has not said whether further Pokémon-branded flights are planned, but World Space Week organizers expect the exhibition to draw crowds through the rest of its European run, with no additional orbital trips currently scheduled.