As a knighted ex-Beatle, Paul McCartney has been broadcast live all over the earth. But this morning's events marks the musician's first foray into outer space.

Sunday morning (Nov. 13), NASA astronaut Bill McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev were treated to a live wake-up call from McCartney in a first-ever concert linkup to the International Space Station.

The performance actually took place Saturday night during an Anaheim, California show on the musician's current 11-week US tour, around 10pm. But with the position of the space station, it was received by the astronauts, 220 miles in outer space, during their Sunday morning, at around 1am.

The prolific songwriter started the special broadcast with the Beatles' hit "Good Day Sunshine" and then added "English Tea" for good measure. As he played, the astronauts sipped their morning drinks from squeeze pouches and McArthur even performed a few weightless backflips in his excitement.

“I can’t believe that we’re actually transmitting to space!” McCartney said. “This is sensational. I love it.”

"Good Day Sunshine" had been used in its recorded version as a wake-up call previously on August 09 to the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery. When he heard this, McCartney decided to treat the astronauts to a live version on their 44th day of a six-month mission.

This also marks the first time a live concert has been broadcast to a US spacecraft of any kind.

McCartney is winding up his tour this month, with remaining tour dates in Sacremento (Nov 16), Houston (Nov 19), Dallas (Nov 20), Phoenix (Nov 23), Las Vegas (Nov 25 and 26) and Los Angeles (Nov 29).

For more information on Sir Paul McCartney, please visit the his official website at www.paulmccartney.com. For more information on the International Space Station, please visit www.nasa.gov.

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