Sochi Olympic torch taken on historic spacewalk
Two Russian cosmonauts are taking the torch for the Sochi Winter Olympics on its first historic spacewalk, ahead of next year's games in Russia.
Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky took the unlit version of the torch through the hatch of the International Space Station at 1434 GMT.
The pair say the torch will spend up to six hours in open space.
A three-man crew took the torch up to the space station on a Russian Soyuz rocket on Thursday.
The rocket blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan crewed by three cosmonauts - Russia's Mikhail Tyurin, American Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata from Japan.
The crew handed the Olympic symbol to Mr Kotov and Mr Ryazansky, who were already on the orbiting station ahead of Saturday's spacewalk.
The event is seen as part of a rebranding exercise by Russia designed to portray it as a strong, modern country, BBC correspondents say.
"Our goal here is to make it look spectacular," Mr Kotov said earlier this week.
"We'd like to showcase our Olympic torch in space. We will try to do it in a beautiful manner. Millions of people will see it live on TV and they will see the station and see how we work."
The two cosmonauts are expected to take pictures and videos of each other holding the torch before setting off to do some maintenance on the orbiting station.
The torch will be tethered to one of their bulky spacesuits.
The craft reached the space station six hours after leaving Earth on Thursday
The torch taken by the three-man crew has not been lit on the ISS
The Olympic torch has been carried into space twice before - in 1996 and 2000 - but it has never left a spaceship. It is not being lit aboard the space station as this would consume oxygen and pose a risk to the crew.
The Sochi torch will then be returned to Earth and used to light the Olympic cauldron in February next year.
The trip to the space station is all part of elaborate preparations for Russia's first Olympics since the Soviet era. The games are the most expensive Olympics so far, costing around $50bn (£31bn; 1,620bn roubles).
The run-up to the games has been marred by controversy over a new Russian law that restricts the spread of information about homosexuality, as well as by allegations from rights groups that authorities have rounded up migrant workers who helped build the Games venues in Sochi.
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