BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 05: Kristen Stewart attends the Los Angeles Premiere Of A24's ... [+]
Kristen Stewart is starring as a legendary astronaut in her first-ever TV series role.
According to Deadline, Stewart will play Sally Ride in the upcoming series The Challenger for Amazon/MGM Studios. Ride made history in 1978 by becoming the first American female to fly in space and ride aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
Sadly, the shuttle became the center of a tragedy three years later when it blew up off the coast of Florida shortly after lift-off. Among the seven astronauts on the Challenger was American school teacher Christa McAuliffe.
According to NASA, the Challenger was only 73 seconds into its flight from the Kennedy Space Center when it exploded.
Ride, who was an astronaut and a physicist, died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012, at age 61.
(Original Caption) Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas: On board Scene-Astronaut Sally K. Ride, ... [+]
Ride Was On The Commission Probing The Challenger Explosion
In addition to flying aboard the Challenger, Ride was selected as the only astronaut to serve on the Rogers Commission, a presidential body that investigated the space shuttle tragedy, Deadline reported. The shuttle’s faulty O-rings were eventually pinpointed as the culprit for the disaster.
Deadline said The Challenger is being produced by actor Kyra Sedgwick’s Big Swing production company.
“This is something we’ve worked on at Big Swing since 2017, me, Meredith and Valerie, about this new class of astronaut recruited by NASA in the early 1970s,” Sedgwick told Variety.
“Sally Ride was among them, and the focus is this newly recruited wild, feral group of astronauts who were all very diverse,” Sedgwick added. “And then on an Oppenheimer track, it also tells the story of the Rogers Commission that investigated the Challenger disaster that Ride took part in.”
Kristen Stewart’s career rose to prominence, of course, with her role as Bella Swan in the Twilight movie saga opposite Robert Pattinson, which began in 2008.
Stewart’s other credits include Charlie’s Angels, Snow White and Huntsman and Spencer—where she earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for playing Lady Diana Spencer.
Most recently Stewart starred in the 2024 crime thriller Love Lies Bleeding.
