Skip to main content

Watch a year of life on the space station squeezed into 60 seconds

Most astronauts visiting the International Space Station (ISS) would probably be more than happy to spend the entirety of their six-month stay staring out of the window, the beauty of the passing scenery causing their jaw to hit the floor, or, more realistically, float around (considering the microgravity conditions).

Truth be told, astronauts are kept extremely busy during their stays on the orbiting outpost 250 miles above Earth, tasked with everything from science experiments and spacewalks to more mundane but necessary activities such as exercising and keeping the place clean.

A fun video (below) shared by the European Space Agency on Sunday attempts to show what a typical day on the ISS is like by taking clips shot over many months and squeezing them into an action-packed 60-second sequence.

🎂 Aujourd’hui, je dépasse 365 jours dans l’espace, en cumulant mes 2 missions bien sûr… Un an… !
🤯
A whole year in space over the course of the #Proxima and Alpha missions. Scenes from a typical day… in one minute 😉 #MissionAlpha pic.twitter.com/gDgF4gllSP

— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) October 9, 2021

The footage was captured during two missions undertaken by French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, the first called Proxima in 2016, and the Alpha mission that he’s on now.

The video offers a glimpse of what it’s like to live and work aboard the ISS, with Pesquet shown carrying out a dizzying array of tasks, some of which we’ve written about on the pages of Digital Trends.

Besides plenty of science stuff, we also see the Frenchman handling a camera as he goes about snapping more incredible photos of Earth, and playing the saxophone in the station’s Cupola module during some downtime.

There’s a clip of Pesquet suited and booted for one of many spacewalks that he’s conducted outside the ISS, while the “space boogie” that he performed earlier this year also made the cut.

A space pizza makes an appearance, too, while a beautiful (albeit very short!) star show closes the video.

For a more detailed look at life aboard the space station, check out this collection of insightful videos that features astronauts explaining everything from how to get a haircut in microgravity conditions to how to use a space toilet.

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Watch highlights of Virgin Galactic’s first commercial trip to edge of space
VSS Unity during a test flight to the edge of space.

Virgin Galactic successfully launched its first paying customers to the edge of space on Thursday.

The company’s debut commercial flight took off from Spaceport America in New Mexico on Thursday morning.

Read more
Watch this SpaceX Falcon 9 booster takes its 12th ride to space
SpaceX launches a Falcon 9 rocket on June 18, 2023.

SpaceX successfully launched its latest mission from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday evening.

The mission sent an Indonesian communications satellite to orbit using a Falcon 9 booster on its 12th flight. The rocket blasted off the launchpad at 6:21 p.m. ET following a delay of 15 minutes due to strong winds.

Read more
Watch NASA’s new solar array unfurl on the space station
A new rollout solar array on the ISS.

A view of the new rollout solar array unfolding after NASA astronauts Steve Bowen and Woody Hoburg successfully installed it to the 1B power channel on June 15, 2023. NASA TV

Two NASA astronauts completed a successful spacewalk at the International Space Station on Thursday.

Read more