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WATCH: Olympic Torch Makes Its First Space Walk

The Sochi 2014 Olympic Torch relay made history today: After riding from Earth to the International Space Station aboard a Russian rocket, two Russian astronauts took it with them on a space walk, marking an Olympic first.

As Howard Berkes reported back in June, the torch was not lit.

"That's because an open flame in a spaceship could be, well, dangerous," Howard explained. "Still, once back on Earth at the opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics in February, the space torch will be all fired up."

Luckily, during the space walk, Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazanskiy did not let go, but the torch was tethered anyway. With that, we'll leave you with the cool video showing the torch make its way to outer space:

The torch will return to Earth on Monday. In case you missed it, here is video of the day the torch arrived on the Space Station:

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.
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