CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - In a high-flying, perfectly pitched first, an astronaut on the International Space Station is bowing out of orbit with a musical video: his custom version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
It's believed to be the first music video made in space, according to NASA.
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield's personalized rendition of "Space Oddity" was posted on YouTube on Sunday, one day before his departure from the orbiting lab. He's wrapping up a five-month mission.
His return aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule, along with American Thomas Marshburn and Russian Roman Romanenko, was set for late Monday in Kazakhstan.
Hadfield, 53, a guitarist who played in an astronaut rock 'n' roll band, recorded the video throughout the space station. He had some down-to-Earth help from a Canadian music team.
"With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here's Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World," Hadfield said via Twitter.
The spaceman altered some of the lyrics of Bowie's 1969 version, singing "Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing left to do." The Bowie version goes "... and there's nothing I can do." And instead of "Take your protein pills and put your helmet on," it became, "Lock your Soyuz hatch and put your helmet on."
Planet Earth provided a stunning backdrop for many of the scenes.
"It's just been an extremely fulfilling and amazing experience end to end," Hadfield told Mission Control on Monday. "We're, of course, focusing very much on flying the Soyuz home now and looking forward to seeing everybody face to face. But from this Canadian to all the rest of them, I offer an enormous debt of thanks." He was referring to those in the Canadian Space Agency.
Hadfield, an engineer and former test pilot from Milton, Ontario, was Canada's first professional astronaut to live aboard the space station and became the first Canadian in charge of a spacecraft.