Olympic torch to go on spacewalk for first time as part of Sochi 2014 relay

The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics torch will be sent to the International Space Station on board a Russian spacecraft this week.

According to Metro.co.uk, astronauts will then carry it outside the station, as the torch will go on a spacewalk for the first time.

The mission is due to set off from the Russian-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early on Thursday morning but for safety reasons the torch will not burn when on board the space shuttle, the report said.

The Olympic torch has flown into space before, in 1996 aboard the US space shuttle Atlantis ahead of the Atlanta summer Games but has never been taken outside a spacecraft, the report added.

The four-month-long Sochi torch relay started in Moscow on October 7 and is the longest in Olympic history, the report further said.

Plane, train, car and reindeer, as well as its excursion will carry the torch by space shuttle, on its 65,000-kilometre route around Russia, according to the report.