'Once-In-A-Lifetime': Astronaut Spacewalk Captured In Stunning Photo From Germany

An astrophotographer has captured a "once-in-a-lifetime" photo of the International Space Station (ISS) from the ground in Germany. In it, one can see two astronauts on their recent spacewalk.

Expedition 66 astronauts Raja Chari of NASA and Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency (ESA) recently conducted a spacewalk at the ISS. Although people are usually impressed by the stunning photos that astronauts take of the Earth, this time, astrophotographer Sebastian Voltmer captured a rather unique photo of the ISS featuring the two astronauts during the recent spacewalk.

"During the spacewalk of the two astronauts Raja Chari and Matthias Maurer the International Space Station appeared shortly after sunset in the bright evening sky over Germany," Voltmer noted in a feature on SpaceWeather.com.

"This image of the ISS pass was taken on March 23, 2022, under good seeing conditions through my C11 EdgeHD telescope from the hometown of ESA astronaut Dr. Matthias Maurer."

In the first image, Maurer can be seen as the small spot on the ISS. As Voltmer explained, Maurer was "just climbing at this moment."

In the feature, Voltmer explained that he released the photo right away but continued working on the final image with "world well-known photographer of all things ISS," Philip Smith. Evidently, Smith noticed that Chari was also visible in the image and created another version of the photo that also highlighted Chari's location. He inserted a shot from the NASA livestream as well.

"I feel like I just made a once-in-a-lifetime image," Voltmer said in the feature. "It's probably the first ground-based picture showing two spacewalkers on the ISS at the same time."

The recent spacewalk was the 248th ^"in support of space station assembly, upgrades and maintenance," according to NASA. It was also quite a special one because it was Chari's second spacewalk and only Maurer's first.

During the spacewalk, which lasted almost seven hours, the pair conducted various tasks to prepare for an upcoming solar array installation. They also performed other tasks such as replacing an external camera and installing a power and data cable on the Bartolomeo science platform among others.