text: Nasa has released incredible point-of-view footage taken by astronauts on spacewalks of the International Space Station. Expedition 42 commander Barry Wilmore and flight engineer Terry Virts recorded three spacewalks, known as Extra Vehicular Activities, on GoPro cameras outside the ISS on February 25 and March 1. The spacewalks were in preparation for the arrival of multibillion pound commercial spacecraft, which Nasa hope will be in operation by 2017. Expedition 42 commander Barry Wilmore and flight engineer Terry Virts recorded three spacewalks on GroPro cameras . Nasa recently signed a contract with commercial spaceflight companies SpaceX and Boeing with the intention to produce craft capable of transporting astronauts to the ISS. The clip was recorded to give the future ISS workers an idea of what they can expect when they go into space to maintain the commercial spacecraft. In the footage Virts and Wilmore can be seen repairing the robotic arm of the space station and installing a new communication system for the future docking spacecraft. The spacewalks were in preparation for the arrival of 2017's multibillion pound commercial spacecraft . The astronauts can be seen repairing the robotic arm of the space station and installing a new communication system . Construction of the ISS began on 20 November 1998. It supports a crew of up to six, with crews split into groups of three. The station orbits at a height of about 255 miles (410km). It has a total mass of about 990,000 pounds (450,000kg) and has living space roughly equivalent to a five-bedroom house. It completes an orbit of Earth every 92.91 minutes and moves at 17,100 miles (27,600km) per hour. The two men also set up antennas and routed 4000 feet (1219m) of power and data cables. The video captures breathtakingly clear images of earth as astronauts work from a distance of 250 miles. Nasa has recently relied on Russian Soyuz capsules taking astronauts to ISS to carry out maintenance work since its space shuttle fleet was retired in 2011 after 30 years’ service. But at a cost of nearly £50 million per seat, it has not been a financially viable solution. Nasa now hope that their deals with SpaceX and Boeing can cut the cost of their future transportation fees. The International Space Station is a habitable artificial satellite in low earth orbit. It is now the largest artificial body in orbit, since its first component was launched in 1998, and is often visible to the naked eye from earth. Astronauts Virts and Wilmore set up antennas and route 4000 feet of power and data cables . The video captures breathtakingly clear images of earth as astronauts work from a distance of 250 miles .
target: Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts captured the footage on spacewalks .
  The astronauts were carrying out repair work on the space station .
  Video captures incredibly clear images of the earth from 250 miles .
  Spacewalks were in preparation for commercial spacecraft arrival .