Exposed: scenes from a spacewalk

As part of ESAs ExposeR2 project, 46 species of bacteria, fungi and arthropods were delivered by a Progress supply ship to the International Space Station in July 2014. Spacewalking cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev attached the package to the outside of the Zvezda module on 18 August 2014, where it stayed until it was retrieved 18 months later. This ExposeR2 is a miniature photochemistry laboratory that exposes samples to the harsh environment of space. Subjected to the full blast of the Suns energy as well as vacuum, radiation and temperature swings, they are helping researchers investigating how chemicals and microbiological life react to unprotected spaceflight on a comet, for example. Previous Expose experiments have already shown that water bears and a species of lichen can survive a trip into space. This video shows scenes from a spacewalk with cosmonauts Gennadi Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko who were asked to photograph the ExposeR2 facility halfway through its stay in spa