Nasa has released incredible point-of-view footage taken by astronauts on spacewalks of the International Space Station . Expedition 42 commander Barry Wilmore and flight engineer Terry Virts recorded three spacewalks , known as Extra Vehicular Activities , on GoPro cameras outside the ISS on February 25 and March 1 . The spacewalks were in preparation for the arrival of multibillion pound commercial spacecraft , which Nasa hope will be in operation by 2017 . Expedition 42 commander Barry Wilmore and flight engineer Terry Virts recorded three spacewalks on GroPro cameras . Nasa recently signed a contract with commercial spaceflight companies SpaceX and Boeing with the intention to produce craft capable of transporting astronauts to the ISS . The clip was recorded to give the future ISS workers an idea of what they can expect when they go into space to maintain the commercial spacecraft . In the footage Virts and Wilmore can be seen repairing the robotic arm of the space station and installing a new communication system for the future docking spacecraft . The spacewalks were in preparation for the arrival of 2017 's multibillion pound commercial spacecraft . The astronauts can be seen repairing the robotic arm of the space station and installing a new communication system . Construction of the ISS began on 20 November 1998 . It supports a crew of up to six , with crews split into groups of three . The station orbits at a height of about 255 miles ( 410km ) . It has a total mass of about 990,000 pounds ( 450,000kg ) and has living space roughly equivalent to a five-bedroom house . It completes an orbit of Earth every 92.91 minutes and moves at 17,100 miles ( 27,600km ) per hour . The two men also set up antennas and routed 4000 feet ( 1219m ) of power and data cables . The video captures breathtakingly clear images of earth as astronauts work from a distance of 250 miles . Nasa has recently relied on Russian Soyuz capsules taking astronauts to ISS to carry out maintenance work since its space shuttle fleet was retired in 2011 after 30 years ’ service . But at a cost of nearly £50 million per seat , it has not been a financially viable solution . Nasa now hope that their deals with SpaceX and Boeing can cut the cost of their future transportation fees . The International Space Station is a habitable artificial satellite in low earth orbit . It is now the largest artificial body in orbit , since its first component was launched in 1998 , and is often visible to the naked eye from earth . Astronauts Virts and Wilmore set up antennas and route 4000 feet of power and data cables . The video captures breathtakingly clear images of earth as astronauts work from a distance of 250 miles .
ray Wilmore and ray Virts captured the footage on camera . The astronauts were carrying out repair work on the space station . Video captures incredibly accurate images of the spacecraft from 4000 miles . they were in preparation for commercial spacecraft arrival .