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ISS astronaut shares stunning time-lapse of mission highlights

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Thomas Pesquet is getting ready to depart the International Space Station after a six-month stay.

The French astronaut has been super busy conducting several spacewalks, working on science experiments in microgravity conditions, giving tours of the space station, and capturing amazing imagery of Earth from up high.

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With his mission set to end in the coming weeks, Pesquet has just shared a stunning time-lapse video (below) featuring incredible imagery captured during his time in space. The footage features everything from auroras and lightning to spacewalks and spacecraft.

Best of Alpha mission timelapse

According to the European Space Agency (ESA), which helped produce the video, the time-lapse footage was captured by a camera setup that takes two images each second. It was then edited to play at 25 images a second. ESA said that most of the sequences in the video therefore play at around 12 times faster than the actual speed.

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In a tweet accompanying the video, Pesquet urged space fans to “get comfy, cast [the footage] to your largest screen in the house and enjoy!”

Pesquet is one of SpaceX’s Crew-2 astronauts who launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in April. The other three crew members are NASA’s  Shane Kimbrough  and  Megan McArthur, plus Akihiko Hoshide of Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency.

NASA is currently evaluating dates for the crew’s return to Earth. The space agency’s current priority is to launch the Crew-3 mission to the ISS. It was originally set for launch last weekend but was pushed to Wednesday, November 3 due to poor weather conditions. Earlier this week, it was delayed again due to a minor medical issue involving one of the Crew-3 astronauts.

NASA is now targeting Saturday, November 6 for the Crew-3 launch to the ISS. Digital Trends has all the information you need to watch a livestream of the early stages of the mission, as well as the spacecraft docking procedure and the welcoming ceremony aboard the station.

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Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
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