Six astronauts, including Japan's Kimiya Yui, are dressed as warriors from the "Star Wars" film series in a poster NASA released Thursday ahead of their travel to the International Space Station later this year.
The six ISS crewmen in the Expedition 45 team — three Russians, two Americans and one Japanese — are clad in brown Jedi robes and wielding lightsabers.
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it created the poster featuring the astronauts dressed like characters from the megahit sci-fi franchise, which has a new movie due out in December, to raise public awareness of its activities in space.
The other five astronauts are Scott Kelly, Oleg Kononenko, Mikhail Kornienko, Sergey Volkov and Kjell Lindgren. The first group of the team will depart Earth in March.
NASA's Johnson Space Center, which has training facilities for astronauts, has designed a poster for each expedition team and a past poster was based on "Star Trek," another American space-themed television and movie franchise.
