The Netherlands as seen from four hundred kilometres up
One task given to Dutch ESA astronaut André Kuipers during the recent DELTA Mission was to take a photo of The Netherlands.
The result is this photo, on which the Dutch coastline and the Wadden Islands can be clearly seen, as well as the Afsluitdijk, the 32 km dam between the Zuiderzee and the Ijsselmeer to the north of the country. The distinctive string of Wadden Islands was one of the first views Kuipers saw from the Soyuz capsule during the journey to the International Space Station on 19 April 2004.
André Kuipers took the photo on 23 April 2004 from on board the International Space Station, which orbits the Earth at an altitude of approximately 400 km.