NASA Plus is a space-themed answer to Netflix – and it lifts off soon

If you’ve already devoured all of the space-themed content available on the best streaming services, fear not – NASA has announced that it’s launching its first on-demand streaming platform to give stargazers a new alternative to Netflix.

Naturally, the service will be called NASA Plus, adopting the mandatory naming scheme for (almost) all streaming platforms. And the good news is that it’ll initially be an ad-free service with no monthly fees, offering live broadcasts and also access to NASA’s collections of original video series (including some that will launch with NASA Plus).

NASA plans to launch the service “later this year”, although given that it also describes the update as “coming soon”, we’re hopeful that it will arrive before the end of August. It’ll apparently be available on most smartphones, desktop and some of the best streaming devices – so, as well as being available on NASA’s iOS and Android apps and via web browsers, you’ll be able to get it on Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV devices.

The space agency has previously won Emmy awards for its coverage of the SpaceX Demo-1 mission in 2019, which combined live coverage on TV and radio, plus social media stunts and in-person events. 

But it’s the promise of new original video series that will likely get space fans flocking to the service when it launches in the next few months, particularly given NASA Plus will be completely free (at least, to start with).

The move comes as part of a relaunch of the agency’s website and mobile app – and you can check out an early beta version of the new NASA website right now. It looks like a much more polished hub for news, photos and info about the International Space Station and more.

A new, free streaming star?

When we saw the NASA Plus name, we assumed it’d be another paid streaming service to sit alongside Apple TV Plus and Disney Plus – but thankfully, NASA says it’ll be free of both monthly charges and ads.

This suggests that NASA Plus won’t have a vast library of content initially, and naturally space-themed dramas such as The Martian will still live on the likes of Disney Plus.

But NASA does have a decent roster of live events planned for August and we’re intrigued to see those new original video series on the service when it does launch in full.