See ourselves live on Earth from Space Station

William Atkins
Tuesday, 10 March 2009 23:48

Science - Space

NASA has announced that it will provide a webcam of live streaming video from the International Space Station (ISS) so we can see ourselves on the Earth. Ok, we won't actually be able to see people walking around, but the views from space should be spectacular nevertheless.


The NASA media brief, “NASA launches International Space Station webcam streaming video,” states that, “The streaming video views of Earth and the exterior structure of the station are from cameras mounted outside the laboratory complex, orbiting Earth at 17,500 miles an hour at an altitude of 220 miles.”

The video will be turned primarily when the astronauts aboard the ISS are sleep, usually between 1 p.m. and 1 am. Central Time (Houston [Texas] time from the Mission Control Center [MCC] at the NASA Johnson Space Center).

Check out TimeZoneConverter.com, to convert from Houston local time to your local time to get an approximate range of times that this live feed will be available to people on Earth.

From Canberra, Australia, your range of times for viewing the live feed is 5:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day (with Houston’s MCC now using Daylight Savings Time).

NASA says that if live video camera is not turned on, then Web viewers will see a “map showing the current location and path of the station,” which is provided by the MCC in Houston.

During the times that the astronauts are awake, the video camera may be turned on to document their activities inside and out of their home in space.

NASA adds, “The streaming video will include audio of communications between Mission Control and the astronauts, when available. When the space shuttle is docked to the station, the stream will include video and audio of those activities.”

To look at the live video from outside the Space Station, go to http://www.nasa.gov/station, and click on “External Camera Video” on the left of your screen.

Or, go directly to NASA TV.