Two Russian cosmonauts took the torch for the Sochi Winter Olympics on a historic spacewalk, ahead of next year's games in Russia.
Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky took the unlit version of the torch through the hatch of the International Space Station at 1434 GMT. According to a report in the BBC, live footage showed Kotov waving the torch 261 miles (420km) above Earth. A three-man crew took the torch up to the space station on a Russian Soyuz rocket on Thursday.
The rocket blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan crewed by three cosmonauts — Russia’s Mikhail Tyurin, American Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata from Japan. The crew handed the Olympic symbol to Kotov and Ryazansky, who were already on the orbiting station ahead of Saturday’s spacewalk.
The two cosmonauts took pictures and videos of each other holding the torch using helmet cameras. The torch, which was tethered to their bulky spacesuits, was to spend up to six hours in open space. In addition to the photo opportunity, Kotov and Ryazansky were carrying out some maintenance on the orbiting station.