Barbie has been an astronaut since 1965, decades before anyone actually let her near a rocket. That changed in 2022 when Mattel sent two real Barbie dolls to the International Space Station. The dolls spent several months orbiting the Earth as part of Mission DreamStar, a project built with the International Space Station National Laboratory, according to Mattel's official announcement. Mattel has said the goal of the project was to show girls that a career in space isn't just something that happens in the movies.
How two dolls ended up in orbit
The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, which later added the dolls to its collection, said that the Barbie dolls were flown in an Antares rocket in February 2022 and spent several months on the ISS. Per Mattel's announcement, the mission was a part of their Space Discovery dolls series and its Mission DreamStar outreach effort run jointly with the ISS National Laboratory. According to Space.com's coverage, Mattel officially announced its mission on April 14, 2022, in line with the launch of its Space Discovery toy range. Per the Smithsonian's own description of the dolls, their spacesuits were designed with pink and blue detailing evoking real ISS gear.
