Decks have been cleared for the Olympic flame’s maiden spacewalk in history, with a rocket carrying the torch blasting into space successfully on Thursday to mark the 2014 Winter Games slated to commence in Sochi from February 7. The Olympic flame was blasted off by a three-member crew, comprising of Mikhail Tyurish of Russia, Rick Mastracchio of the U.S., and Koichi Wakata of Japan, thereby setting the stage for the torch to make a spacewalk on Saturday to create history. Painted with the Sochi 2014 logo, the rocket was launched from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0414 GMT. The Olympic flame will fly to the International Space Station, from where it will enter into space.

Although the Olympic torch has been taken into space on two earlier occasions, in 1996 and 2000, it will be for the first time that the flame will go on a spacewalk. While Tyurin has been entrusted with the job of handing off the flame to the other two cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky, the duo will perform the task of taking it outside the airlock. “We will have a kind of relay of our own with this torch”, an elated Tyurin said, while Kotov remarked that the aim is to make it appear spectacular. “Our goal here is to make it look spectacular. We’d like to showcase our Olympic torch in space….millions of people will see it live on TV, they will see the station and see how we work”, he said.

Millions Watching

Taking into account the safety aspect, the Olympic flame will not be lit when it’s taken on the space outpost as the lighting process will require oxygen, which will pose danger to the crew. This means it will be an unlit torch that will be carried by the crew around the station before ultimately making the spacewalk. Also, the move to take an unlit torch must be providing a lot of relief to Russia as the flame has gone off on many occasions during the month-long relay. The Sochi torch relay, which began on Oct.7, is the longest in the Olympics’ history. As many as 14,000 torchbearers will be participating in the fourth-month long relay that will pass through more than 130 cities and towns.

The Olympic flame, which will be in space for a period of five days, will return to Earth on Monday after taken for the spacewalk on Saturday. On its return, the torch will continue a 65,000-km, or 40,000-mile, relay that will culminate with the commencement of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, exactly three months from now.

Describing the event as “outstanding” and “spectacular”, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, William Gerstenmaier said by seeing the proceedings live it could be understood that it wasn’t easy to stage such a performance.

First Ever Olympic Flame Spacewalk

Specifically designed to match the feathers of a red and silver firebird from Russian folklore, the torch has undertaken a journey to the North Pole on an atomic-powered icebreaker, while it’s slated to travel to Mount Ebrus’ peak and Lake Baikal’s depths. On November 11, Fyodov Yurchikhin (Russia), Karen Nyberg (NASA), and Luca Parmitano, an astronaut of the European Space Agency, will bring back the Olympic flame to Earth.