NASA has sent Baby Yoda into orbit, per Techcrunch.com, and it feels like nothing else has ever made this much sense. The popular character, who took the world by storm following the release of The Mandalorian, now has a replica in space aboard SpaceX.
Baby Yoda was added as a surprise fifth passenger alongside four astronauts bound for the International Space Station. A plush version of The Child from the hit Star Wars series entered space as a zero-gravity indicator, a small, soft object that usually goes into the cabins of spacecraft and allowed to float as a means of letting everyone know the craft has passed the point where Earth's gravity is still effective.
The Crew-1 contingent consists of astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker of Nasa. They're joined by JAXA's Soichi Noguchi. The crew will be on the ISS for the next six months where they will carry out NASA's first operational crew mission, courtesy of partner SpaceX. The aerospace manufacturers certified its Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft for human travels earlier this year.
Baby Yoda, who typically gets scolded for messing with the controls on the Mandalorian's spacecraft, should be causing no such trouble where Crew-1 is concerned. He likely won't require much supervision either.
Merchandise taking on the likeness of The Child has been the subject of wild spending and it seemed like it was only a matter of time before one was taken into space. SpaceX's first human space mission from earlier 2020 saw a toy dinosaur named Tremor head into orbit, resulting in the prehistoric depiction flying off the shelves.