This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 42Notes 1 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken on August 12, 2015, from 06:10:29 to 06:16:34 GMT, on a pass over the New Zealand area during the daytime. This video begins by looking at the South Island of New Zealand as the ISS travels to the northeast and toward the Pacific Ocean. Next, the ISS passes over the North Island before ending the pass over the Pacific Ocean.
The ISS passes over different parts of the Earth at different times. In the video below, Astronauts Don Pettit, Andre Kuipers and Dan Burbank explain the orbital path of the International Space Station.
And in the video below, you can see why spacecraft orbits look wave-like on maps.
- Expedition 42 (November 2014-March 2015) was the 42nd expedition to the International Space Station. One of the key aspects of Mission 42 – and other missions in 2015 – was the preparation and reconfiguration of parts of the ISS to allow commercial space taxis (like Boeing’s CST-100 and SpaceX’s Dragon capsules) to dock at the ISS. The mission required several spacewalks. The crew were: Commander Barry E. Wilmore (NASA) and flight engineers Aleksandr Samokutyayev (RSA), Yelena Serova (RSA), Anton Shkaplerov (RSA), Samantha Cristoforetti (ASI-ESA) and Terry W. Virts (NASA).