International Space Station seen from Dragon

It can be hard to appreciate that a human-made, football-pitch-sized spacecraft is orbiting 400 km above our heads, but there it is.

The jewel of human cooperation and ingenuity that is the International Space Station shines brightly in this image captured by ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour.

Crew-2 got these amazing views during a flyaround of the orbiting lab after undocking from the Harmony module on 8 November 2021, before their return to Earth.  

Thomas commented on this picture: "One of the last things we did before returning to Earth was a photo reportage of the exterior of the International Space Station. Unlike cars, boats or aircraft, the International Space Station never has periodic check-ups at a garage or hangar: all maintenance is done while flying in space. The pictures help the engineers on Earth to assess the state of the Station. There are some on-board video cameras but they don’t cover the whole exterior, so to get a complete view we did a complete fly-around of the Space Station in our Crew Dragon and during the tour I tried to capture as many details of the outpost as possible. The Dragon windows are not designed for precision photography and using the maximum zoom gave risk of blurry results (although some of the less useful pictures for the engineers have more emotional merit maybe). As we flew through both night and day the lighting conditions were not always ideal either, but nevertheless it was absolutely incredible to view the Space Station from afar with Earth and the cosmos as backdrop. It was an excellent end to the Alpha mission and allowed us to fill our souvenir bank to the max during our last hours in space."

A collaboration between five space agencies, the Station has become a symbol of peaceful international cooperation for over two decades. It represents the best of our space engineering capabilities as well as humankind’s pursuit of scientific knowledge and exploration.

By any standards, it is an incredible piece of spacecraft engineering. Weighing 420 tonnes, it travels in low-Earth orbit at more than 27 000 km/h, circling Earth approximately 16 times every day.

Crew members conduct scientific research in microgravity at facilities such as ESA’s Columbus module. Some of these experiments and tests are preparing the way for human exploration of the Moon and beyond. But the Station also provides a unique view of Earth, while its science benefits life on our planet.