The news agency wrote that the cosmetics brand is paying US$128,000 (~RM533,950) to NASA in order to have the shoot happen. Both parties will fly 10 bottles of Estee Lauder’s Advanced Night Repair skin serum to the ISS via the Northrop Grumman Antares rocket this Tuesday from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, USA. The NASA spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the station on the following Saturday. The ISS astronauts are then tasked with shooting photos of the product once it arrives. The photoshoot is requested to be held in the station’s Cupola module, which features panoramic views of Earth and space. For those wondering, the current crew present on the ISS include NASA’s Chris Cassidy as well as cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. The report added that the space agency is charging a ‘professional fee’ of US$17,500 (~RM73,000) per hour to Estee Lauder for the astronauts’ time. The cosmetics brand says that it plans to use the photos for publicity on social media, where roughly 4 million people are following its Instagram account. Additionally, one of the bottles will also be auctioned for charity after the product makes its return to home to Earth this spring. Anatoly Ivanishin, Ivan Vagner and Chris Cassidy (left) with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley (right) [Image: NASA / SpaceX]This collaboration between NASA and Estee Lauder is expected to be the first of many other commercial-based activities to follow in the near future. Back in June 2019, the space agency announced that it was opening the ISS to explore new opportunities including commercial activity and space tourism. Recent reports also suggested that the first ever movie production in space is expected to happen as soon as 2021, featuring none other than Mission Impossible star Tom Cruise. (Source: Bloomberg | Header image: NASA)
