Nasa release breathtaking GoPro footage of earth taken by astronauts during International Space Station spacewalk - video

The spacewalks were in preparation for the arrival of commercial craft to the ISS in 2017

Jack Simpson
Monday 13 April 2015 16:02 BST
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The two Nasa astronauts captured some breathtaking images of earth from the ISS (Nasa)
The two Nasa astronauts captured some breathtaking images of earth from the ISS (Nasa)

Nasa has released incredible GoPro footage taken by its astronauts as they embarked on three spacewalks to prepare for the expected arrival of commercial space crafts to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2017.

The incredible clips show breath-taking views of earth from space and never before seen astronaut point-of-view images of the outside of the ISS as Nasa astronauts Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts filmed themselves carrying out essential maintenance work on the craft.

The footage gives those chosen to man these commercial crafts an idea of what they can expect when they arrive on the ISS.

Last year, Nasa signed a contract with commercial spaceflight companies SpaceX and Boeing to work together to produce a new craft that is able to ferry Nasa astronauts to the ISS.

Since Nasa’s space shuttle fleet was retired in 2011 after nearly 30 years in orbital service, Nasa has relied on Russian Soyuz capsules to take its astronauts up to the ISS at a cost of $70 million per seat.

They hope their multibillion pound deals with SpaceX and Boeing will make them less dependent on Russia and significantly cut the costs of transportation to the ISS in the future.

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