A pressure suit protects Terry Virts as he walks in space

Date

2015

Description

Creator of the image: Terry Virts
Date of the image creation: 1 March 2015
Medium: Photograph
Person depicted: Terry Virts

Terry W. Virts, Jr. took this photograph of himself on the 1st of March in orbit around the earth. After taking this selfie, Virts uploaded it to the internet, along with a tweet reading: ‘Mission Accomplished — 3 #spacewalks, 800' of cable, 4 antennas, 3 laser reflectors, 1 greased robotic arm’. This rather dramatic image shows the space-suit that Virts needs to survive in the vacuum of space. His face is obscured behind the reflective visor of his helmet, the earth in the distance behind him. After almost seven months in orbit, the crew of Soyuz TMA-15M safely landed back in Kazakhstan on 11 June 2015.

Terry W. Virts, Jr. was born Baltimore, USA, in 1967, and went on to graduate with a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from the United States Air Force Academy, and then a masters of aeronautical science. He served in the Air Force for over a decade, training as a pilot. He clocked up over 3,000 flight hours in more than 40 aircraft. In the year 2000, NASA selected him as a space pilot. Virts was twice blasted into space in 2014, first for a short space-shuttle mission, and then, on the 23rd of November, he was part of an international team of three aboard the Soyuz TMA-15M. The Soyuz spaceships were first launched by the Soviet Union in 1967. They are still in use today, with the 2015 voyage being the 124th flight of such a craft. The astronauts and cosmonauts were launched into orbit via an intercontinental ballistic missile fired from Kazakhstan. Roughly six hours later, they docked at the International Space Station.

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