Skip to main content

Astronaut shows off views from ISS module after Crew Dragon success

SpaceX gained global attention last week for its first all-civilian mission, likely opening the door to space travel to more private citizens.

The four members of the Inspiration4 crew spent three days in orbit and returned home on Saturday, September 17.

The groundbreaking mission also saw the first use of an all-glass observation dome fitted to the top of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.

Jared Isaacman looking out out of the Crew Dragon's cupola.
Inspiration4 mission commander Jared Isaacman peering out of the Crew Dragon’s cupola. SpaceX

The cupola treated the Inspiration4 crew to stunning views of Earth and beyond, with the panorama a clear improvement on the more restricted view offered via the spacecraft’s smaller windows.

Well, it seems that all of the attention lavished upon the Crew Dragon’s cupola has prompted an astronaut aboard the International Space Station to remind everyone that the crew there also has a pretty awesome window on the world in the form of its very own observation module.

NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, who arrived at the orbiting outpost in April, this week posted a gorgeous view of Greece and the Mediterranean Sea taken from inside the space station’s cupola.

Greece, Italy, and the Mediterranean Sea as seen from the cupola on @Space_Station. pic.twitter.com/cGkmarwBUd

— Shane Kimbrough (@astro_kimbrough) September 20, 2021

Another image posted earlier this month shows a dramatic view of an alluvial fan in Botswana, with Kimbrough using the module’s seven-window design to artfully frame the natural phenomenon.

Cool view of this alluvial fan in Botswana out of the cupola windows. pic.twitter.com/4RiFxfk5GN

— Shane Kimbrough (@astro_kimbrough) September 9, 2021

Visiting astronauts often head to the cupola when they want to capture Earth photos, with some of the photography efforts being truly spellbinding.

The expansive views afforded by the module mean that astronauts also use it to assist with spacewalks and monitor spacecraft arrivals and departures.

The cupola was added to the space station in 2010, about 10 years after the first astronauts began living and working aboard the orbiting laboratory. The image below shows the ISS’s cupola from the outside.

Backdropped by the blackness of space, NASA astronaut Ron Garan is pictured in a window of the cupola of the International Space Station in 2011. NASA

Check out the start of this video for a detailed interior view of the space station’s observatory module.

Space Station Fisheye Fly-Through 4K (Ultra HD)

This video shows some of the breathtaking imagery captured from the space station’s cupola.

ISS Timelapse - Just another day inside the Cupola (30 Novembre 2015)

The Crew Dragon’s cupola is smaller than the space station’s and comprises a single glass dome instead of multiple windows. But the views from both are always going to be magical.

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
NASA and Boeing reveal new date for first crewed Starliner flight
A graphic rendering of the Boeing Starliner orbiting Earth.

NASA and Boeing had been hoping to perform the first crewed flight of the Starliner spacecraft next month, but on Wednesday they announced the mission will now take place no earlier than Friday, July 21.

“While the Starliner spacecraft build is complete, additional time is needed to close out verification and validation work prior to the system’s first flight with crew on board,” Boeing said in a statement posted on its website.

Read more
Four Crew-5 astronauts return home safe from International Space Station
Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina, left, NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata, right, are seen inside the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft onboard the SpaceX recovery ship Shannon shortly after having landed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Tampa, Florida, Saturday, March 11, 2023. Mann, Cassada, Wakata, and Kikina are returning after 157 days in space as part of Expedition 68 aboard the International Space Station.

A crew of four astronauts has returned safely to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS), splashing down  in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Tampa, Florida, late on Saturday, March 13. The Crew-5 astronauts traveled in a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and made a parachute-assisted splashdown at 9:02 p.m. ET (6:02 p.m. PT), at which point, they were picked up using a recovery ship and taken back to Tampa to catch a plane to Houston.

The crew consisted of NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, plus Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina. The four have spent nearly six months on the orbiting space station, working on projects including scientific research and spacewalks to upgrade space station hardware.

Read more
NASA targets today for Crew-5 astronauts’ journey home
SpaceX's Crew-5 astronauts.

SpaceX’s Crew-5 astronauts are aiming to depart the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, bringing to an end a five-month stay aboard the facility.

The current plan is for NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann, along with Japan’s Koichi Wakata and Russia’s Anna Kikina, to undock from the space station aboard their Crew Dragon spacecraft at 5:05 p.m. ET before splashing down at 9:25 p.m. ET on Friday, March 10.

Read more