Before plucking away spores and seeds that have been stuck outside the International Space Station for months, Russian cosmonauts ceremonially tossed a flash drive into the atmosphere during their recent spacewalk.
What's so exceptional about the flash drive? Apparently, it contains the cosmonauts' special messages for their homeland, dedicated to a particular celebration in Russia.
Cosmonaut Sergey Volkov bide his time to catch a good camera angle before sending off the flash drive overboard as the ISS sailed 250 miles above the Pacific. The Earth's blue, cloud-speckled atmosphere offered the cosmonauts a stunning background view.
The special flash drive carries videos and messages pertaining to the 70th anniversary of Russia's Victory Day at the end of World War II. It was attached to a tiny bundle stuffed with towels that provide some bulk.
"There it goes," Volkov says in the video, as he lets go of the package with his gloved hand.
"Just beautiful," he added while spinning slowly, looking toward Earth. Yuri Malenchenko, Volkov's spacewalking partner, floated nearby.
From outside Moscow, the Russian Mission Control radioed the cosmonauts and praised their spacewalk.
The job of throwing the flash drive into Earth was added just a few days ago. NASA said the package does not pose hazard to the orbiting lab. Scientists expect the tiny bundle will re-enter the atmosphere in a few weeks.
As the two spacewalkers accomplished their mission for the moment, they set off to retrieve research equipment that has been outside for seven years. The equipment, which is called EXPOSE-R, includes plant seeds, as well as spores from fungi and bacteria.
These specimens were usually replenished every year or two and were then returned to Earth for analysis.
Volkov and Malenchenko placed fresh experiments somewhere on the ISS, then found themselves struggling with a dispenser in a surface-coating experiment. The two cosmonauts got frustrated as the dispenser kept jamming as they attempted to coat an outdoor sample board. Only one attempt was successful.
"It glued on so nicely. It's like a perfect sticker," one of the cosmonauts said. They weren't finished yet, but the mission control told them to wrap it up and head back in the station.
In the end, the cosmonauts' spacewalk, which was aired at NASA TV, had lasted for five hours.
