Watch over one hour of our planet, seen from the International Space Station, in 4K resolution. This compilation was made from video taken by ESA astronauts, mostly by Thomas Pesquet during his first mission, Proxima, and ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst on his second mission, Horizons, as well as footage from Samantha Cristoforetti's Futura mission and Paolo Nespoli's Vita mission.

Flying 400 km above our amazing planet Earth, the Space Station travels at 28 800 km/h to stay in orbit. Most of the scenes were filmed in the European-built Cupola module, the Space Station’s observatory.

On 21 April 2001, the first ESA astronaut Umberto Guidoni arrived at the Space Station. Since then, the Space Station has grown immensely, as have the number of Europeans to have worked in it, together with the science experiments performed in orbit.

Europe contributes around 8% of the running costs of the International Space Station, but has built a large part of the structure, including ESA’s Columbus laboratory, the Cupola observatory, the Tranquillity and Harmony modules, as well as the computers that collect data and provide navigation, communications and operations for the Russian segment.

ESA also provided the Space Station with supplies and boosted its orbit through five Automated Transfer Vehicles, the heaviest and most versatile Space Station supply ferry. This programme evolved into the European Service Modules that ESA is supplying for NASA’s Artemis programme, taking humans forward to the Moon and thus continuing the exemplary international collaboration beyond Earth’s orbit.

Since Umberto’s mission, there have been 26 further ESA astronaut missions to the International Space Station, with astronauts flying to Station on either the Russian Soyuz or US Space Shuttle spacecraft.

Thomas Pesquet’s second mission, Alpha, is the 28th mission for ESA, with ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer already lined up for his first flight later this year, and ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti scheduled for the 30th ESA International Space Station mission in 2022.