Launching a new streaming service is hard. Doing so by taking an existing name and adding a ‘+’ is even harder. NASA‘s NASA+ service, due to go live later this week, will hopefully sidestep some of the challenges experienced by other services that expect you to pay for them.

That’s right. The American space agency is launching its service without asking you for money. It also won’t be dumping ads in front of your face to make up for that, either. It’ll just be free.

NASA+ is the one?

We launch more than rockets. This month, we launch our new streaming service, NASA+. https://t.co/McWnWOKXSu

No subscription req.
No ads. No cost. Family friendly!
Emmy-winning live shows
Original series
On most major platforms pic.twitter.com/5ffjptumUJ

— NASA (@NASA) November 1, 2023

NASA+ launches on 8 November in the US and will be available on “most platforms”. At worst, you should be able to access the service via a web browser but we wouldn’t be surprised if it made its way to local mobile phones and tablets. A dedicated TV app in South Africa might be a stretch but it’ll also be supported by the Apple TV so you might want to pick up Apple’s little box if you’re a serious rocket-head.

It’s not just live launches and historical footage, though that would be reason enough to get excited by the service’s launch. NASA plans to release its own original series, probably based on ongoing missions and launches. Whether there’s any fiction coming from the space agency isn’t known but they’ve got access to the world’s largest and (mostly) non-lethal explosions. The stories sort of write themselves.