Skip to main content

Spacewalk time-lapse reveals the fiddly work of an astronaut

The European Space Agency (ESA) has shared a time-lapse from the International Space Station showing astronauts Thomas Pesquet and Akihiko Hoshide on a spacewalk earlier this month.

Spacewalk season timelapse, episode 4

The footage highlights just how fiddly the work of an astronaut can be during such extravehicular activities (EVA) — to give spacewalks their official name — with both men spending an inordinate amount of time in a single location while performing intricate work in bulky suits.

Recommended Videos

You’ll quickly spot the astronauts’ special bag containing all the tools that they needed during their EVA, which lasted 6 hours and 54 minutes. To prevent the tools from floating off into the abyss of space, each tool is tethered to the interior of the bag, which itself is tethered to the exterior of the station.

Also, watch out at the 45-second mark as Pesquet — in the suit without red stripes — takes a quick break to turn and wave at the camera.

During the walk, Pesquet and Hoshide prepared a section of the space station for its solar panel upgrade that will boost the orbiting outpost’s power system.

The ESA said that after the lengthy spacewalk, the astronauts celebrated with some ice cream. “Spacewalks last seven hours and are like top sport, so we need the calories afterwards,” Pesquet said later.

This was Pesquet’s sixth spacewalk across two ISS missions, and Hoshide’s fourth, also across two missions.

The ESA has been posting a series of spacewalk time-lapses in recent months. The one below shows an astronaut secured to the end of the station’s robotic Canadarm as it moves around the exterior of the station.

Spacewalk season timelapse, episode 3

More than 240 spacewalks have been conducted at the ISS since the orbiting laboratory went into operation two decades ago. The EVAs are usually for maintenance or upgrade work.

Built by international partners, the station is one yard short of the full length of an American football field, with living quarters described by NASA as being “larger than a six-bedroom house.”

There are usually around six astronauts living and working on the ISS at any given time. Check out this collection of videos showing how the crew work, rest, and play during their time aboard the habitable satellite.

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)…
Astronaut’s stunning photo shows ‘flowing silver snakes’
A photo of Earth at night taken by NASA astronaut Don Pettit.

Over his three previous missions to the International Space Station (ISS), NASA astronaut Don Pettit earned a reputation for having a keen eye when it comes to photographing Earth and beyond.

Since arriving at the ISS on his fourth orbital mission earlier this month, Pettit, who at 69 is NASA’s oldest active astronaut, has wasted little time in grabbing the station’s cameras to capture and share fresh dazzling imagery shot from 250 miles above Earth.

Read more
London sparkles in astronaut’s gorgeous night shot from the ISS
London seen from the ISS.

A gorgeous image captured by a recent arrival at the International Space Station (ISS) shows the night lights of London gleaming 250 miles below.

NASA astronaut Don Pettit -- NASA’s oldest active astronaut at 69 -- arrived at the station last week on his fourth trip to orbit.

Read more
Time-lapse from ISS shows lightning and mysterious red light
Earth in a time-lapse captured from the ISS.

In his final weeks aboard the space station after six months in orbit, NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick has shared a gorgeous time-lapse of Earth.

It shows a large part of Asia as the International Space Station (ISS) passed over it at night at an altitude of about 250 miles. The footage, which you can watch below, shows numerous flashes of lightning over a wide area, bright clusters of city lights, and colored lights from fishing boats, which Dominick describes as “one of my favorite things to see at night from the ISS.” But it also shows a bright red light, the source of which Dominick is unsure about.

Read more