The ISS is coming to Twitch.
On Wednesday (Feb. 12), NASA will host its first Twitch stream from the International Space Station (ISS), giving viewers the chance to ask NASA astronauts questions in real time, while they orbit Earth some 250 miles (402 km) from our planet’s surface.
“Twitch is one of the many digital platforms we use to reach new audiences and get them excited about all things space,” Brittany Brown, director of Office of Communications Digital and Technology Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in the agency’s announcement. The event begins at 11:45 a.m. EST on Feb. 12th. Viewers can tune in on NASA’s official Twitch channel.
Twitch, a livestreaming service originally centered around providing streams of people playing video games, has expanded to stream a variety of content in recent years. While NASA has used Twitch before, this will be the agency’s first live feed from the ISS that was developed specifically for NASA’s Twitch platform.
“We spoke with digital creators at TwitchCon about their desire for streams designed with their communities in mind, and we listened,” Brown said. “In addition to our spacewalks, launches, and landings, we’ll host more Twitch-exclusive streams like this one.”
The stream will feature NASA astronauts Don Pettit and Matthew Dominick, both of whom are known for their outstanding astrophotography on the orbiting laboratory. They’ve even shared tips on snapping shots from low-earth orbit on a previous stream on X Spaces (formally Twitter Spaces). While Dominick recently returned to Earth after NASA’s Crew-8 mission, Pettit is currently aboard the ISS.
Viewers can expect to learn what daily life is like on the space station and what research the astronauts carry out in microgravity. The event will also highlight ways Twitch users can engage with NASA, like “citizen science projects” and STEM programs designed for a new generation of space enthusiasts.
NASA has led the way for space-to-earth broadcasts before. On Nov. 15, 2006, NASA, in cooperation with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and others, conducted the world’s first live high-definition broadcasts from space. The broadcast, which featured Expedition 14 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria aboard the ISS, was televised on a giant screen in Times Square.
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