Soon a movie studio in space for Tom Cruise

The producers of the future film to be shot by American actor Tom Cruise in space, aboard the international space station, announced that they plan to attach a studio to the Axiom segment of the orbital complex. They signed a contract with Axiom Space for the realization of this module. Financial details of the studio’s contract with Axiom were not disclosed. We do not know much about this film project or the nature of the scenes that will be shot and for which Tom Cruise has not spoken publicly. Space Entertainment Enterprise, who will produce the film, is currently in discussions with potential investors and partners and is planning a new fundraiser.

The launch of this module, baptized SEE-1, for Space Entertainment Enterprise, is scheduled for December 2024. It will expand the Axiom segment that the company plans to connect to the space station in September 2024. The first two elements of Axiom will be built by Thales Alenia Space, they will be the node junction node 1 (AxN1) and the housing module (AxH). Axiom Space’s goal is to make its station autonomous and separate it from the ISS within ten years.

With a diameter of 6 meters, this module will be, according to the press release from the studio Space Entertainment Enterprise, the ” world’s leading content and entertainment studio and a arena versatile in space “. This module will not be built in steel. It will be inflatable and should be inspired by the technology used by the company, now closed, Bigelow Aerospace, which connected the Beam inflatable module to the International Space Station in September 2016. This module has since proven its solidity and ergonomics. . NASA continues to use it and uses it to store material, mainly scientific.

The Axiom segment will be served by SpaceX’s Crew Dragons

The addition of a module, which could be adapted as an “entertainment spot” to the Axiom segment of the Space Station, should strengthen the commercial attractiveness of Axiom Space, which markets its segment for multiple activities. Axiom Space, whose launch contracts signed with SpaceX, gate to four the number of manned missions that will be launched bound for the international space station by 2023. These missions will be carried out by the Falcon 9 and the Crew Dragon from SpaceX.

Axiom’s first mission, AX-1, announced in March 2020, has already been approved by NASA and should be launched to the ISS in September 2024. Eventually, Axiom wants to offer up to two private flights to the ISS per year.

NASA: Tom Cruise’s mission aboard the ISS becomes clearer

Article of Remy Decourt published on 30/10/2020

American actor Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman are expected to reach the International Space Station aboard a capsule Crew Dragon of SpaceX, chartered by Axiom Space. During this mission of a duration ten days, the two stars will not go sightseeing. They will shoot and direct but neither the screenplay nor the plot have been revealed.

During a round table held during the 2020 edition of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Michael Suffredini, CEO of Axiom Space, reviewed all of his company’s space projects including those related to space tourism. As a reminder, Axiom Space is a start-up created in 2016 whose co-founder Michael Suffredini was director of the ISS program at NASA from 2005 to 2015.

As part of its NextStep program, intended to further open theorbit low to the private sector, NASA selected Axiom Space last January to supply, from the second half of 2024, new commercial habitable modules. Attached to the front of the international space station, they will thus create a “ Axiom Segment » open to tourism.

But the main topic of discussion concerned the project of a manned mission, entirely private, bound for the International Space Station. Lasting 10 days, this mission will be the first to carry only private astronauts, without a crew member from a government space agency. While seven people have already flown to the ISS as space tourists, all have taken advantage of available seats on Russian Soyuz missions funded by Russian space agency Roscosmos.

This trip is scheduled for October 2021 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule with three passengers whose identity has not yet been revealed. It is known that the pilot of the Crew Dragon will be astronaut Michael López-Alegría, 62. This NASA veteran has four spaceflights to his name. He will be trained by Axiom.

A film shot on board the ISS

Michael Suffredini did not wish to make public the names of the three passages but we believe that two of the three passengers will be Tom Cruise, who is going to the orbital complex to shoot a film and Doug Liman who will direct it. We owe this director several films including Edge of Tomorrow, The memory in the skin or, Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

For the time being, Axiom Space is finalizing the contracts with SpaceX (the carrier), NASA (which rents and makes available to the film crew the American part of the International Space Station) and the three passengers. It would be interesting to know whether an insurance company has undertaken to insure the flight and stay of Tom Cruise, one of the most bankable in the world, and at what cost!

Axiom Space hopes to finalize these contracts by the end of October, beginning of November in order to carry out this mission during the fourth quarter of 2021.