Planet Earth at 4K

Thanks to the german astronaut Alexander Gerst and his numerous photos taken during his six month journey in space on board of the International Space Station (ISS), ESA released this marvelous time lapse video showing stunning images from our blue planet. During his 166 days on board, he managed to take about 12500 shots in constant intervals, showing snapshots of auroras, sunrises & sunsets, cloud formations, stars, oceans, our Milky Way, lightnings and last but not least our thin and fragile atmosphere. In addition to his beautiful shots taken from the inside of the space station he was able to watch our planet face-to-face during his EVA (planned maintenance) on the 7th of October 2014.

Nico Trebbin was supporting the Blue Dot mission as a Mission Control Subsystem Engineer. As such he has been responsible for the TM/TC reception and transmission to the Columbus module of the ISS in order to support Alexander Gerst during his numerous experiments on board the European Lab. While several tasks can directly be performed by the astronaut, some operations can only be operated by the ground segment and the Mission Control Center in Oberpfaffenhofen.