Boat Rocker Studios is sending a contestant to space in its newly greenlit factual series Who Wants to be an Astronaut?

Commissioned by Discovery Channel in the U.S., the eight-part competition series is produced by Boat Rocker-owned, New York-based Matador Content and New York prodco BoomTown Content.

The show sees contestants compete for a unique prize: the chance to spend eight days aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as it travels from earth to space. This mission is expected to launch no earlier than January 2022.

Discovery unveiled the greenlight as part of its 2021/22 upfront presentation earlier this week.

Executive producers on Who Wants to be an Astronaut? are Matador Content’s Jay Peterson and Todd Lubin, Boomtown Content’s Paul Ricci and Mark Efman and Discovery’s Wyatt Channell, Caroline Perez and Scott Lewers.

After investing in and acquiring a number of factual-focused Canadian outfits including Insight Productions and Proper Television, Boat Rocker has made a number of significant unscripted moves in the U.S. market in recent years. In November 2018, Boat Rocker acquired Matador Content, later tapping Matador CEO Jay Peterson as president of Boat Rocker Studios, unscripted. More recently, in March of this year, Boat Rocker Studios jointly launched a new prodco, Maven, with veteran unscripted exec Jessica Sebastian-Dayeh.

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