The world of For All Mankind is expanding – but perhaps not in quite the way fans might expect.
New Apple TV drama Star City takes viewers back to the point at which Ronald D Moore, Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi’s alternative-history saga first diverged from our own: the Soviet Union beating the United States to the moon.
But rather than simply retelling the opening moments of For All Mankind from another angle, Star City promises a darker, more paranoid companion piece, exploring the secretive machinery behind the Soviet space programme.
The series moves behind the Iron Curtain, following the cosmonauts, engineers and intelligence officers whose work helped propel the USSR to a historic lunar victory – while also exposing the suspicion, surveillance and personal risk built into that system.
Rhys Ifans leads the cast as the Chief Designer, a driving force behind the Soviet space programme, while Motherland and Line of Duty star Anna Maxwell Martin plays the head of a KGB surveillance team.
With the first two episodes now available, read on for your guide to the Star City release schedule – including when to expect episode 3.
How many episodes are in Star City season 1?
Star City season 1 consists of eight episodes.
The series launched with a double-bill on Apple TV, before moving to a weekly rollout every Friday.
That means viewers will be spending a little under two months with the new series, which runs from late May through to mid-July.
When is Star City episode 3 out on Apple TV?
Star City episode 3 will be released on Apple TV on Friday 5 June 2026.
The first two episodes arrived together on Friday 29 May 2026, with subsequent episodes then landing weekly.
Star City release schedule: When are new episodes out on Apple TV?
Barring any surprise schedule changes, here’s when you can expect each episode to land:
- Star City season 1 episode 1 – Friday 29 May 2026 – out now
- Star City season 1 episode 2 – Friday 29 May 2026 – out now
- Star City season 1 episode 3 – Friday 5 June 2026
- Star City season 1 episode 4 – Friday 12 June 2026
- Star City season 1 episode 5 – Friday 19 June 2026
- Star City season 1 episode 6 – Friday 26 June 2026
- Star City season 1 episode 7 – Friday 3 July 2026
- Star City season 1 episode 8 – Friday 10 July 2026
What is Star City about?
Star City is set in the same alternative-history world as For All Mankind, but shifts the focus away from NASA and onto the Soviet side of the space race.
The parent series famously began with the USSR becoming the first nation to put a man on the moon, a single historic change that sent its timeline spiralling away from our own.
This new drama returns to that pivotal moment, exploring how the Soviet Union achieved its breakthrough – and what that victory cost the people working inside the programme.
Speaking exclusively to Radio Times, co-creator Ben Nedivi said the team were fascinated by the secrecy of the real Soviet space programme, including “this city in the middle of the woods that no one could access”, adding that the Chief Designer was inspired by a real individual who was “one of the most historically great figures of all time that nobody knows about”.
Star City will premiere on Apple TV on Friday 29 May. Start your seven-day free Apple TV trial at Apple.
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