Dubai: Days after he completed the first Arab spacewalk outside the International Space Station (SS), UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi today shared a ‘surreal’ time-lapse video of the historic event.
The 26-second-long clip shows select moments from his seven-hour spacewalk, which was undertaken alongside NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen.
According to NASA, the 261st spacewalk or Extravehicular Activity (EVA) in the vacuum of space outside the ISS lasted for seven hours and one minute.
In his Arabic post on Tuesday, Al Neyadi said the spacewalk was “a challenging experience.” He also said in the post’s English version that the time-lapse video captured “one of my most surreal moments on the ISS”.
The video shows Al Neyadi, bearing the UAE flag on the arm of his bulky spacesuit, fixing the camera and moving upward to join Bowen for the station maintenance work.
As the duo kept working on the exterior of the microgravity laboratory, they orbited the Earth around 420km above the planet, travelling at about 28,000km/h.
Orbiting Earth
The video also shows the arrival of the first rays of the sun during an orbital sunrise spread across the Earth. The two spacewalkers had laid cables and installed insulation on mounting brackets on the starboard truss of the station for the installation of the next pair of iROSAs. However, the astronauts were unable to free up an electronics box located on the truss associated with a degraded S-band communications antenna. The antenna removal hence was deferred to a future spacewalk ahead of its planned return to Earth.
New frontiers
“After completing my first spacewalk, I am humbled by the experience,” Al Neyadi said in his post in English.
In the Arabic post, he pointed out that he learnt a lot from the experience.
“Thanks to the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre and NASA teams for all that we have achieved and for always supporting me... Thank you to everyone for the unwavering support. Onward to new frontiers.”
In his first reaction immediately after entering back into the space station after the spacewalk, Al Neyadi had thanked the leadership and the agencies behind the mission and everyone else who supported. He also pointed out that his feat will not remain the last for the Arab world.
“I would like to thank my leadership, the leadership of the UAE and the USA, specifically Mohammed Bin Rashid Centre and NASA for believing in us and for giving us this opportunity. This might be the first in the Arab world. But it definitely won’t be the last. Arab astronauts are now training now to go on a mission to the ISS, to the lunar surface and to Mars. I would like to thank everybody who helped us for this moment,” he had said.
