To experience life in and around the International Space Station (ISS) requires years of astronaut training, but technology does continue to bring us closer to the experience. The latest example is a 360-degree video, the first ever shot in outer space, that places the viewer in the thick of the action as Russian cosmonauts carry out a spacewalk.
The video was released by Russia's English-language news agency Russia Today (RT), which has helped create other impressive videos of the ISS in the past, including GoPro footage of maintenance work on the orbiting laboratory's exterior and 360-degree videos of its insides.
Now it has combined those two themes to produce the first ever 360-degree video of so-called extravehicular activity. Captured during a 7.5-hour spacewalk in August, the video takes the viewer outside the ISS as Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryazansky and Fedor Yurchikhin carry out maintenance and release a bunch of small satellites into low-Earth orbit by hand.
The video was produced by RT, in collaboration with the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos and spacecraft manufacturer RC Energia. As is the way with 360-degree videos, it is best viewed in a VR headset or failing that, on a mobile device, where you won't need to click around the screen to see all the action. Jump on in below.
Source: Russia Today