RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) – We have high school students to thank for partnering with NASA to provide new live streaming video from the International Space Station.
The High Defnition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment points HD video cameras at Earth as the ISS orbits our planet every 90 minutes. The experiment just went live April 30, 2014. High school students will help operate this experiment with NASA, as part of the “High Schools United with NASA to Create Hardware” (HUNCH) program.
When the ISS is on the daylight side of Earth, you can see clouds, fires, dust storms, aurora, cities, and a myriad of stunning vistas below. The live video stream below is black whenever the ISS is on the night side of Earth. When the video is grey, that’s when a different camera is loading for your viewing pleasure.
Live streaming video by Ustream
If the camera is dark while the ISS orbits on the night-side of Earth, watch some previous stunning views in this video while you wait:
Let’s put the size of the ISS along an American football field (to scale):
Image: NASA
Click here to find out when you can spot the ISS from Earth. And you can track the ISS location here.
The ISS keeps a nearly circular orbit, flying (on average) at 17,227 mph, anywhere from an altitude of 205 miles to 255 miles above the Earth’s surface.
Carrie Rose
