Axiom plans to build a film studio module for the International Space Station by 2024

Britain’s Space Entertainment Enterprise (SEE) has announced plans to launch a film production studio module intended to connect to the International Space Station (ISS).

The company, which is co-producing Tom Cruise’s next unnamed space movie, has ordered Houston Axiom space to build an inflatable space station module that contains a production studio – including a sports arena – by December 2024.

According to a SEE statement, the module – currently named SEE-1 – is “intended to accommodate movies, TV shows, music and sporting events as well as artists, producers and creatives who wish to create content in low orbit and in The facilities will enable the development, production, recording, broadcasting and live streaming of content.” The company intends to produce its own content and events in the module while also making it available to third parties.

Related: Q&A with Axiom Space CTO Matt Ondler

Yes, the concept art would make us think it looks like a PlayStation Move motion controller or a giant galactic-sized golf ball. But according to Axiom Space, it’s about 20 feet (6 meters) in diameter.

Axiom Space, which was founded in 2016, has extensive experience shaping its vision, including CEO Mike Suffredini, who served as NASA’s ISS program director from 2005 to 2015. Co-founder and executive chairman Kam Ghaffarian co-founded Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies, a contractor that trains NASA astronauts and other agency personnel who work in the ISS program.

The module will dock on the commercial section of Axiom’s ISS, named Axiom Station – which the company aims to launch by the end of 2024. The so-called Axiom Station will connect to the space station’s Harmony node and also provide other business opportunities, such as space tourism. This could potentially detach from the ISS in 2028 and become a separate orbital platform when the ISS reaches the end of its operational life.

Related: NASA wants to help private space stations get off the ground

Co-founded by entrepreneurs Elena and Dmitry Lesnevsky, SEE is currently planning a fundraiser because transporting equipment and supplies to low Earth orbit isn’t cheap.

the cost per kilogram using the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket costs $2,720; that’s over $200,000 for the average weight of an American adult, and that estimate is from 2018. Then there’s the cost of staying up there, which can vary between $88,000 to $164,000 per person per day.

Cruise, 58, whose value is estimated at $600 million, has quite a reputation for sticking to the action and pulling off as many stunts as he himself can. To film himself at the controls of an AS-350 Ecureuil helicopter in “Mission: Impossible – Fallout”, production has been arrested while Cruise trained to become a skilled helicopter stunt pilot. Before principal photography began, he trained for an entire year to perform the High Altitude Low Opening stunt in this film. He also has landed his helicopter at Battersea in London as a promotional hit for the film…and he owns a Mint condition WWII P-51 Mustang that is kept in a private hangar at Long Beach Airport in Los Angeles; he has held a full pilot’s license since 1994.

So months of intensive training followed by a flight of about 250 miles (400 kilometers) directly atop a rocket for a rendezvous in low Earth orbit, to make a movie, seems like a perfectly perfect next step. reasonable for this real man of action.

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