Stunning Image Shows the Incredible Size of the International Space Station During Weekend Spacewalk

03 Mar, 2015 by Greg Campbell

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In a cool new picture of a spacewalk on the International Space Station, the Daily Mail questions, “Can you spot the astronaut?”

It’s tougher than one would think and the space station is certainly bigger than one would imagine.

Spacewalking astronauts ventured out for the third time in just over a week on Sunday to complete a tricky cable job at the ISS.

In one stunning shot, Terry Virts revealed the enormity of the station against the darkness of space as his fellow astronaut, Butch Wilmore, floated almost unseen.

‘Can you spot the space walker in this picture?’ Virts tweeted. ‘He’s very small compared to the enormous starboard truss of the #ISS’.

While it had functioned perfectly during the first two spacewalks, on Sunday morning, a pressure sensor briefly malfunctioned before he floated out.

A mechanical gauge, however, was operating fine. Mission Control told Wilmore that he would need to pay extra attention to how his suit was feeling throughout the seven-hour excursion.

Meanwhile, Nasa said a small amount of water got into American astronaut Terry Virts helmet once he was back in the air lock and the chamber was being repressurised on Wednesday.

They were forced to spend two days analysing his suit after the water leak occurred at the end of an outing earlier this week.

Engineers concluded it was the result of condensation, and a safe and well understood circumstance that had occurred several times before with the same spacesuit.

Virts was never in danger, according to Nasa, so they cleared his spacesuit for the last of three spacewalks, Friday, to install cable.

But in 2013, another astronaut nearly drowned because of a flooded helmet.

Italian astronaut, Luca Parmitano, barely got back into the space station after a considerable amount of water filled his helmet during a spacewalk.

The water escaped from his suit’s cooling system and Nasa spent months investigating the mishap, before clearing the way for more spacewalks.

On Wednesday, the amount of water seepage in Virts’ helmet was significantly smaller and occurred at the end of the spacewalk when Virts was already inside.

‘They’re very different occurrences,’ said Alex Kanelakos, a spacewalk officer in Mission Control.

The advance work, involving nearly 800 feet of cable over three spacewalks was carried out to create new crew capsules commissioned by Nasa.

The work, done by American astronauts Virts and Wilmore, meant 400 more feet of power and data cable has been installed, as well as two antennas installed on Sunday.

A pair of docking ports will fly up later this year, followed by the capsules themselves, with astronauts aboard, in 2017.

With images like this, it’s clear that there is so much more to explore and understand and it serves as a sad reminder of the sorry state of our national space program. Hopefully, America will see a restoration to the luster of our space program in coming years.