Ellie Kemp
The world's first 4k stream from space captured the moment a SpaceX rocket took off to rescue the astronauts 'stranded' on the International Space Station.
Sunita 'Suni' Williams and Barry 'Butch' Wilmore's eight-day mission on the International Space Station turned into nine months when technical issues with their Boeing Starliner meant they were stuck in space until a relief crew could come and take over their duties.
With Elon Musk vowing to get Williams and Wilmore home, on Friday (March 14), SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft was launched with Crew-10 onboard from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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Now, incredible footage from space video streaming app Sen has captured the spacecraft as it headed towards the ISS to bring Williams and Wilmore home.
The footage sees the pod seamlessly glide through the air before it docked at the ISS.
In an update shared on Sunday (March 16), NASA confirmed the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked to the orbiting complex at 12:04 am EDT, while the station was roughly 260 statute miles over the Atlantic Ocean.
Another update revealed the hatches were opened between the space station and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at 1:35am EDT.
The new crew - NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov - all arrived safely and were welcomed onboard.
Sen's livestream is available to watch online thanks to Sen’s 4K camera system, called 'SpaceTV-1', which is actually hosted on the ISS.
It previously captured events including the solar eclipse and the swirling clouds of Hurricane Milton.
The world’s first live Ultra High Definition views of Earth are being captured by Sen through three camera views: one with a wide angle 'panoramic' lens which provides views of Earth's horizon, another that looks straight down at Earth, and a third aimed at the forward-facing docking port of the space station’s Harmony Module.
You can watch the livestream below:
The cameras are able to stream footage from space live to Earth for more than 20 hours per day, with just a few hours a day of expected downtime due to routine loss of signal communications with the inter-satellite link which is relaying the video data to the ground.
Sen has been showing off the capabilities of the livestream in recent months, and now the stream is live for everyone in the world, allowing people to tune in to see what Earth looks like from above as well as keep track of any ongoing global events.
Williams and Wilmore are due to return home tomorrow (March 18), where we'll be able to watch as the spacecraft brings them back to Earth.