ABOVE: Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy install photographic equipment on the hull of the ISS Friday, December 26 (video courtesy of NASA TV)
TORONTO – A pair of Canadian space cameras are being installed today at the International Space Station.
Russian astronauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky are expected to take about seven hours to install the two-high resolution cameras developed by Vancouver-based UrtheCast Corp.
READ MORE: Russians start spacewalk at ISS; 3rd in a week
The cameras – one shoots photos, the other streams video – are expected to begin transmitting high-definition images of the Earth on the Internet early next year.
They are being installed on the Zvezda service module, the Russian segment of the space station.
Once they are pointed at Earth, the cameras will be able to show flash mobs, outdoor events, stadiums, boats and planes, but images like people’s faces and licence plates will be too small to be visible.
They will also be used for agriculture, forestry and environmental monitoring.
The video camera will take images of an area measuring three by five kilometres.
Company officials have indicated there will be about a one-hour delay before the images taken by the cameras show up on Urthecast’s website.
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