UrtheCast: Russia Investigate Space Station HD Cameras

The Canadian company UrtheCast and its Russian partners are investigating what went wrong when its new Earth-watching cameras suffered a glitch shortly after being installed outside the International Space Station last week.

In an eight-hour spacewalk on Friday (Dec. 27), Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy installed UrtheCast's two powerful cameras on the orbiting outpost only to have to remove and return the devices to storage after an unspecified data connection problem.

A high-resolution Urthecast Earth observation camera is seen on the exterior of the International Space Station after being installed by Russian spacewalkers Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy on Dec. 27, 2013. 

The commercial camera will be used by Urthecast stream live views of Earth on the Internet. 

Credit: NASA TV