What is the For All Mankind spinoff? Meet Star City — the same space race from the other side of the Iron Curtain
Apple TV spent seven years telling an alternate history in which the Soviets landed on the moon first, always from a Houston control room. The spinoff finally goes to see what was happening in the other control room.
Star City is an eight-episode Apple TV series set inside the Soviet space program, from For All Mankind creators Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert, and Ben Nedivi. It premiered May 29, 2026 with two episodes and ran weekly through its July 10 finale. Rhys Ifans stars as the Chief Designer.
Apple's own logline calls it "a propulsive, paranoid thriller ".
Which is a fair description — it plays closer to a Cold War espionage drama than to the mission-control procedural of the parent show.
Where it sits in the timeline
It rewinds to 1969, the pivot point of the entire franchise: the moment cosmonaut Alexei Leonov beats Apollo 11 to the lunar surface. For All Mankind opened on that event as an American catastrophe. Star City covers the cosmonauts, engineers, and the KGB officers embedded among them who produced it.
The cast
- Rhys Ifans — the Chief Designer, the architect of the Soviet program.
- Anna Maxwell Martin — Lyudmilla Raskova, running KGB surveillance.
- Agnes O'Casey — Irina Morozova, a role Svetlana Efremova played in For All Mankind.
- Alice Englert — Anastasia Belikova, previously played by Rita Khrabrovitsky.
- Solly McLeod, Adam Nagaitis, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, Josef Davies, Priya Kansara — cosmonauts, engineers, and one Sasha Polivanov who is not built for a program that punishes improvisation.
Two of those are recasts of characters For All Mankind viewers have already met, which is the clearest signal that the two shows are meant to interlock.
Do you need to watch For All Mankind first?
No, though the recasts and the 1969 setting land harder if you have. Season 5 of For All Mankind premiered March 27, 2026 and delivered its finale on July 10 — the same day Star City ended its run. Apple scheduled them as a pair.
Where was it filmed?
Vilnius, Lithuania. Production started February 20, 2025 and wrapped that August, with Sony Pictures Television producing for Apple. Wolpert and Nedivi serve as showrunners; Moore executive produces alongside Maril Davis, Andrew Chambliss, and Steve Oster.
Is there a season 2?
Nothing announced as of August 2026. The spinoff was first revealed in April 2024 and took just over two years to reach screens, so patience is the established norm here.