By using six months worth of European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet’s footage, Google have created a mind-blowing tour of the International Space Station’s 15 modules. As a viewer, you can journey through areas such as the Columbus Research Laboratory, where astronauts conduct experiments in life sciences, physics and more and you can even peer through the Cupola Observational Module – this is where astronauts can look down on Earth as well as monitor any operations they have underway outside of the ISS. An additional interesting feature to the ISS tour is that you can interact with various point of interest such as the Robot Workstation by clicking to find out more (right).
Pesquet was aboard the ISS for six months as a flight engineer. He came back down to Earth in June this year and said:
“…it was difficult to find the words or take a picture that accurately describes the feeling of being in space,”
The ISS launched into space in 2008 and has been occupied for the last sixteen years. Every 24 hours it will orbit the Earth more than 15 times at an altitude of approximately 250 miles. The fifteen connected modules whizz around the Earth at over seventeen thousand miles per hour. The station is predominantly used a research facility, but is hoped to be used as a base for future missions such as visiting Mars and the Moon.
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