Astronauts Don Jedi Robes for Star Wars-Inspired Poster

NASA The official crew poster for the International Space Station's 45th expedition pays tribute to Disney/Lucasfilm's Star Wars.

That's no Star Wars poster. It's a space station... crew.

NASA on Thursday (Feb. 12) revealed the official poster for the International Space Station Expedition 45 crew and let's just say, the Force is strong with them.

The six astronauts and cosmonauts, who will begin their residency on the orbital outpost beginning this September, traded their blue NASA flight suits for brown Jedi robes at the photo shoot.

Entitled "International Space Station Expedition XLV: The Science Continues," the poster features the station's first year-long mission crew Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko (right, bottom and middle), together with NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren (left, bottom), Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko (right, top and left, top) and Kimiya Yui with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. [NASA's Wackiest Astronaut Mission Posters (Photos)]

The poster includes the crew's official mission patch at its center (which may or may not be coincidentally the same shape as an Imperial Star Destroyer), flanked on its sides by a Russian Soyuz rocket like the type the crew will ride to orbit and a European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) with its distinctive "X-wing" solar panels. The station itself is depicted above the crew.

(Look carefully and you might spot another space station or is that a moon? hiding in the shadows.)

The poster's theme and layout was reportedly the idea of Lindgren, who will be making his first trip into space with this mission. NASA photographers and graphic artists at the Johnson Space Center in Houston brought the poster together, digitally adding the lightsabers and background.

The Star Wars-infused crew poster is the latest in a series of NASA posters spoofing movie and other entertainment one-sheets. Past releases have parodied Pirates of the Caribbean, Tron, The Beatles, Star Trek and Harry Potter. The station's current Expedition 42 crew drew inspiration from their mission's numerical designation to recreate the movie poster for "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

The Expedition 45 crew poster is not the first time NASA and Star Wars have combined.

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Astronauts Don Jedi Robes for Star Wars-Inspired Poster