NASA astronaut Doug Hurley arrived at the International Space Station with Bob Behnken aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft at the end of May 2020. The mission marked the first astronaut use of the Crew Dragon, and the first crewed launch from U.S. soil since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011.
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As well as working on various scientific experiments, Hurley has also been taking photos of some of the incredible sights viewable from the space station as it orbits Earth about 250 miles up, and posting them on his Twitter account for everyone to enjoy. We’ve picked out some of the best so far:
Doug Hurley: “I never get tired of this view from the Cupola as our orbit transitions into night.”Doug Hurley/NASA“Cloud art in the South Pacific.”Doug Hurley/NASA“The Bahamas, absolutely one of the most beautiful sights on Earth from space.”Doug Hurley/NASA“Sandstorms in Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.”Doug Hurley/NASA“We flew over this Saharan dust plume today in the west central Atlantic. Amazing how large an area it covers!”Doug Hurley/NASA“Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks; Shoshone, Caribou-Targhee, and Bridger-Teton National Forests, as well as the Wind River Mountains, all in one picture.”Doug Hurley/NASA“After a long haul flying northeast over the Pacific, even at orbital speeds, the first sight of land is the Baja Peninsula.”Doug Hurley/NASA“Was hoping for clear weather as we flew over England, France, and Belgium but the cloud pattern was almost as good.”Doug Hurley/NASA“I stayed up late last night to spend some time looking out the window. It was a beautiful day to see the Great Lakes and my childhood home in upstate New York.”Doug Hurley/NASA“Earth Art, southwest Libya.”Doug Hurley/NASA“The Los Angeles Basin, where @SpaceX headquarters is located and where Dragon #Endeavour was built. The marine layer receded just enough to see Santa Catalina and San Clemente Islands.”Doug Hurley/NASA
Departing ISS astronaut still finds time for stunning night shot
NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick is preparing to fly home aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule at the end of the seven-month Crew-8 mission, but he recently found time to snap an incredible night shot featuring the Nile River, the Nile Delta, Cairo, and beyond.
“Moonlight illuminates Cairo and the Mediterranean on a mostly clear night," Dominick wrote in a message accompanying the photo that was shared on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday.
Crew Dragon is about to fly with empty seats for the first time. Here’s why
NASA and SpaceX are making final preparations for the Crew-9 astronaut flight to the International Space Station (ISS), which is set to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, September 26.
But this will be the first of SpaceX’s 13 crewed flights to the ISS since the first one in 2020 where there will be two empty seats on the Crew Dragon spacecraft. And there’s a very good reason for that. Let us explain.
Polaris Dawn’s high-speed journey home captured in photo from ISS
A remarkable photo taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) shows SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn Crew Dragon capsule entering Earth’s atmosphere at high speed as it returned home with four crew members on board early on Sunday morning.
Close examination of the image (top), which was captured by recent ISS arrival Don Pettit, shows a streak of light and the Crew Dragon, with some city lights visible in the background. The five-day Polaris Dawn mission carried four non-professional astronauts and performed the first-ever privately funded spacewalk while also taking humans to the furthest point from Earth since the Apollo missions five decades ago.
