Timelapse video made during ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet’s second mission to the International Space Station, “Alpha”. The camera is setup to take pictures at intervals of two a second, and the pictures are then edited into this video that plays at 25 pictures a second. The video is around 12 times faster than real speed.

Thomas shared this video on social media saying:

“We often mention robotics on the International Space Station but it doesn’t mean we are playing with robots. We have a 17--m-long, fully-articulated robotic arm on the outside, proudly built by the Canadian Space Agency. It is hugely important to our operations here: it grabs visiting vehicles, moves astronauts around during spacewalks, and does a lot of outside maintenance and logistics. It is always a fun (and to be honest, a bit tense because it’s not easy) moment when we get to fly it though our control panels and joysticks from the Cupola or the Lab (there are no windows there but we have lots of outside cameras).”

Over 200 experiments are planned during Thomas’ time in space, with 40 European ones and 12 new experiments led by CNES

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