Olympic Torch part of ISS History

The new Olympic Torch . TMA-11M crew. NASA Credit.

Expedition 38 Crewmembers (L-R): FLight Engineer Koichi Wakata (Japan), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin (Russia), Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio (USA).

In preparation for the Summer Olympic games of 2014, to be held in Russia, The Russian SPace Agency has sent a famous piece of equipment into space. The Olympic Torch, which will ignite the fires at the Games in 2014, accompanied the crew of Soyuz TMA-11M to the ISS for a magic moment.

Cosmonaut Oleg Kotov holds up the Olympic Torch during Saturday's Spacewalk.

On Saturday, cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazanskiy performed a 5-hour EVA to complete some maintenance items outside the stage. They also took the Olympic Torch outside into space for a brief ceremony outside the Russian-built Pirs module. Once completed, they placed the torch back into the airlock and began to work on the maintenance tasks. The 8th spacewalk of the year, this was the 4th EVA for Kotov and the first for Ryazanskiy. It was the 178th EVA performed on the station.

After completion of the spacewalk, the torch was placed in the Soyuz TMA-09M which would bring the torch back to Earth on the weekend.