This is How You Change a Camera Battery in Space

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A person in a gray polo shirt floats inside a space station module, holding a small metallic object, with large cameras and equipment suspended in the air around them. Wires and devices cover the walls.

Safely back on terra firma, NASA astronaut Don Pettit has been reviewing the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of photographs he took during his most recent mission to space, Expedition 71/72.

Aside from completing conceptual projects with photographers here on Earth, and sharing mind-boggling photos of astronauts on spacewalks, Pettit recently shared a more humorous and relatable video of him changing a battery.

Changing a battery, or a lens, is a minor task that nevertheless requires a photographer’s full attention lest they drop a precious item (darn gravity). But in space, gravity is eliminated, making it a less risky proposition.

How to change your camera battery in weightlessness. pic.twitter.com/7LpUvDNblJ

— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) January 10, 2026

Pettit shared the amusing 19-second video on X and Instagram, in which he lines up a Nikkor wide lens, a battery, and a Nikon Z9 with a Nikon 200mm f/2 attached — all are floating inside a module of the ISS.

Pettit then grabs the camera body, removes the battery, and simply places it suspended in the air next to the fresh battery, which he inserts into the body.

The slight issue is the wide lens slowly floats away from Pettit during the roughly 10 seconds it takes to swap the battery, but he grabs it and places it back in the frame.

Pettit shared a similar video this time last year showing how to change a camera lens in zero gravity.

While the risk of his equipment dropping to the ground is vanquished in zero g, Pettit does still have to contend with dust, which just floats aboard the ISS and never settles.

A nighttime aerial view of a city with a network of illuminated streets and highways forming bright, branching patterns against a dark background. Dense clusters of lights indicate urban centers and surrounding areas.

Pettit touched back down to Earth in April last year. He is NASA’s oldest-serving astronaut and is famous for creating the Zero-G coffee cup, which allows astronauts to drink a cup of joe. It received the first-ever patent for an invention in space. PetaPixel put together a gallery of the best photos he took during Expedition 72 here.

Image credits: Don Pettit / NASA

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