Z CAM Captures Life and Science Aboard the Space Station
With only minutes until sunrise aboard the International Space Station (ISS), astronaut Nick Hague rushed to shut off the lights in the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM). Traveling 17,500 miles per hour, the space station orbits Earth 16 times in 24 hours, so every 90 minutes, the space station experiences a sunrise. For this sunrise, though, the speed of their approach was putting a time crunch on Hague. To capture this moment, timing was everything as he worked diligently to set up the perfect camera shot.
With moments to spare, the camera was ready, the module was dark, and Hague positioned at the window of the JEM. The first orange light shot into the orbiting laboratory. Within a minute, the module of the space station was bright again, this time from the natural light of the sun.