Pope Francis is making his first phone call off the planet, and into space.

On Thursday, the pope will reach out to the six astronauts on the International Space Station. It will be only the second time a pope makes a call into space. Pope Benedict XVI phoned the space station in 2011.

Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli was aboard the orbiting lab for the first papal call, and he's there again, along with three Americans and two Russians.

The call has been in the Earth-to-space pipeline for a while, as the European Space Agency made arrangements with NASA's technical support.

A large Roman Catholic contingent led by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, will gather at Mission Control for the long-distance chat.

Since his launch in July, Nespoli has posted stunning photos of Europe on Twitter. One of his latest scenery snapshots shows Istanbul and western Turkey from 400 kilometers up.