Few of us will ever get to space, but this month, regular Earthlings will have the chance to chat with someone who’s up there right now. NASA has announced a first-of-its-kind Twitch stream where astronauts from the International Space Station will engage with viewers live on the platform. The stream is planned for next Wednesday, Feb. 12, at 11:45 a.m. ET (8:45 a.m. PT) on NASA’s official Twitch channel.
The event will feature NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who joined the ISS crew back in September as part of the Expedition 72 launch. Pettit is known to many for the amazing space photos that he regularly posts on social media. He will be joined by NASA astronaut Matt Dominick, who returned to Earth recently with Crew-8 after being delayed by Hurricane Milton. He also has taken some showstopping pictures from the ISS.
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The two will hang out on Twitch chat and discuss things like daily life on the ISS and what it’s like to conduct research in microgravity. They will also talk about how ordinary citizens can engage with NASA, including citizen science projects and programs across the STEM field.
“This Twitch event from space is the first of many,” Brittany Brown, a communications director at NASA, said in a blog post. “We spoke with digital creators at TwitchCon about their desire for streams designed with their communities in mind, and we listened. In addition to our spacewalks, launches, and landings, we’ll host more Twitch-exclusive streams like this one. Twitch is one of the many digital platforms we use to reach new audiences and get them excited about all things space.”
How to watch NASA’s Twitch stream
To watch the stream, simply head to NASA’s Twitch channel at 11:45 a.m. ET on Feb. 12. The stream will act like any other Twitch stream where you can chat and watch, except this time it’ll be with someone who is 250 miles above the Earth’s surface.
Twitch chats can be volatile on occasion, so hopefully, NASA packed enough moderators in case things get rowdy.
Not NASA’s first rodeo
This isn’t NASA’s first jaunt on the Amazon-owned Twitch from outside the confines of Earth’s atmosphere. The agency has streamed space walks on Twitch and its own NASA+ platform in the past.
However, this will be the first stream where people in the chat have a chance to engage with astronauts, ask questions and otherwise interact with people in space. Prior streams were mostly view-only.
