posted 04-14-2022 08:00 AM               

Trading dress-up for lift-off, Barbie flies on space station for first time

After almost 60 years of dressing up like an astronaut, Barbie has launched into space for real.

Two of the iconic fashion dolls are now on board the International Space Station (ISS), where they are part of "Mission DreamStar," an outreach project to inspire girls to consider careers in aerospace and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. As revealed by Mattel on Thursday (April 14), the dolls have been in Earth orbit since February as part of a collaboration between the toy company and the ISS U.S. National Laboratory.

posted 07-18-2023 09:02 AM               

First Barbie dolls to fly into space debut on display at Smithsonian

At first glance, they appear to be like all of the other Barbie "Space Discovery" dolls found on toy store shelves — and that very well may be the point.

The National Air and Space Museum on Tuesday (July 18) debuted on display the first-ever Barbie dolls to actually fly into space. The two fashion figures spent several months on board the International Space Station (ISS) in 2022 as part of "Mission DreamStar," a joint outreach project by Mattel and the ISS U.S. National Laboratory. The dolls were then donated by the toy company to the Smithsonian.