Pikachu plush travels to International Space Station in ESA partnership
The collaboration includes exhibitions at European Space Agency facilities and museums, plus special merchandise and in-game Pokémon GO events.
PARIS — A Pikachu plush has travelled to the International Space Station as part of a new partnership between The Pokémon Company International and the European Space Agency.
French astronaut Sophie Adenot photographed the specially dressed toy both on Earth and aboard the orbiting laboratory before appearing at a ceremony at ESA Headquarters in Paris.
The collaboration, timed for World Space Week 2026, aims to spotlight ESA's space exploration missions and encourage curiosity about space in a new generation.
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"Pikachu aboard the ISS feels almost suspiciously inevitable," the publicity notes said. "A character built around electricity, curiosity and exploring unfamiliar worlds has now officially left this one."
The partnership will feature exhibitions at ESA facilities across Europe during World Space Week and beyond.
Participating locations include ESA headquarters in Paris, ESRIN in Rome, ESOC in Darmstadt, ESAC in Villanueva de la Cañada, ESTEC in Noordwijk and ECSAT in Harwell.
Pokémon is also landing in museums. Exhibitions are planned for the Science Museum in London, Cité de l'espace in Toulouse, Deutsches Museum Nürnberg, Museu de les Ciències in Valencia, Space Expo in the Netherlands and Belgium's Euro Space Center.
The collaboration comes with the "inevitable question inspired by any good space mission: what is everyone wearing?" the notes said.
Pokémon Center has released collaboration merchandise including plush and Pokémon Trading Card Game accessories. Two Pikachu plush designs feature ESA astronaut outfits like the one Adenot brought aboard the International Space Station.
There is also a bomber jacket for anyone who prefers wearing the collaboration themselves, while Pokémon TCG accessories use artwork created for the ESA partnership.
ESA is getting its own Pikachu collection as well, with themed apparel and merchandise including T-shirts, a tote bag, notepad and pins.
The mobile game Pokémon GO will join World Space Week too, with special in-game offerings planned as part of the celebration.
The notes described the partnership as an "unusually natural collision of science and pop culture."
"Space exploration already depends on imagination about places most people will never personally reach, while Pokémon has spent 30 years turning exploration, discovery and unfamiliar creatures into an invitation to keep looking around the next corner," they said.
The photographs of Pikachu aboard the International Space Station might be the collaboration's most charming souvenir.
"A plush toy travelled hundreds of kilometres above Earth, but the bigger idea stays firmly down here: give kids one more reason to look upward and wonder what they might find," the notes said.
With files from That Eric Alper