Nasa image goes into online orbit

BACKDROP: A shot of Wairarapa and both islands with astronauts Robert L Curbeam jnr (left), and Christer Fuglesang during their construction mission to the ISS. PHOTO/NASA

A snapshot of Wairarapa - taken from a height of about 400km above the surface of the earth - is tracking an orbit in virtual space.

The photograph was taken during the Discovery Space Shuttle STS-116 mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) released the image on June 3 this year to mark five decades of US spacewalks.

The astronauts pictured are American Robert L Curbeam jnr, on the left of the picture, with European Space Agency (ESA) officer Christer Fuglesang on the right. Both STS-116 mission specialists took part in the mission's first of three planned sessions of spacewalking as construction continued on the ISS.

Cook Strait, North and South islands, and Wairarapa backdrop the image, which was taken from the space station on December 12 in 2006.

The high definition shot was captured as the space station orbited earth at a height of about 400km above the ground, while hurtling across the face of the heavens at more than 27,000km/h.

The image was yesterday still tracking an off-world path through virtual space and had rocketed through a count of more than 3000 social media shares; helped lift off a burgeoning flock of tweets on Twitter; and was gravitating likes and comments to itself as the cover image on the Wairarapa Times-Age Facebook page.

The first American to take a spacewalk, or extravehicular activity (EVA) in astro-speak, was Edward H White II, who floated into the vastness of space on June 3, 1965, during the Gemini IV mission.

White manoeuvred himself for more than 20 minutes around the Gemini as the spacecraft hurtled over Hawaii to the Gulf of Mexico - making his orbital stroll 6500 miles long, the Nasa website states.

Nasa astronauts have since performed spacewalks on the Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Space Shuttle and space station programmes and have also explored the lunar surface, completed 82 spacewalks outside the space shuttle and 187 spacewalks outside the ISS to date.

A total of 166 hours of spacewalks had also been completed during service missions to the Hubble Space Telescope.