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No ape was launched into space. In February 2016, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly hid inside a soft storage bag aboard the International Space Station, climbed into a life-size gorilla costume, and surprised British astronaut Tim Peake. Kelly then pushed off the station’s handrails and chased Peake through the Destiny laboratory in microgravity.
The planned birthday gag was recorded on the ISS and later preserved in NASA’s historical coverage.
Watch the “ape in space” clip
The widely shared video shows Peake dealing with a stowage container before Kelly suddenly emerges in the gorilla suit. Kelly floats into the adjoining module as Peake moves away, creating the comic image of a gorilla chase without any running or animal flight.
The original contemporary report, published February 23, 2016, linked to the clip on YouTube: watch the historical video. Because old video links can be removed, retitled, or region-restricted, check the page itself for the current availability and title. If it cannot be played, NASA’s retrospective confirms the sequence and provides the essential context.
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Accessibility description: Scott Kelly, wearing a bulky gorilla costume, rises from a soft-sided storage bag and propels himself through the station while Tim Peake retreats through the module.
How the prank worked
- A gorilla costume was delivered to the International Space Station.
- Kelly put it on and concealed himself in a soft-sided storage container.
- Peake handled or secured the container in or near the station’s U.S. Destiny laboratory.
- Kelly burst out and pursued Peake through the connected pressurized modules.
In orbit, “chasing” does not mean sprinting across a floor. The station and its crew are in continuous free fall, producing microgravity. Kelly and Peake moved by pushing against surfaces and grabbing handrails; once they imparted motion, they drifted until another handhold or surface changed their direction. That slow, floating movement is part of the joke’s visual contrast with a conventional gorilla chase on Earth.
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A birthday surprise arranged by another astronaut
NASA says Scott Kelly’s identical twin, astronaut Mark Kelly, arranged for the life-size costume to be sent to the station as a surprise for Scott’s February 21 birthday. The stunt was therefore a planned bit, not an accidental encounter or a spontaneous discovery of station equipment.
Tim Peake was a British astronaut with the European Space Agency and part of the same Expedition 46 crew. Scott Kelly was the NASA station commander; near the mission’s end he would hand command to NASA astronaut Tim Kopra, as recorded in NASA’s command-change report.
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The serious mission behind the joke
The prank took place near the end of Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko’s approximately 340-day mission. Their year in orbit was designed to provide data about the health effects of long-duration spaceflight, information relevant to future exploration such as missions to Mars. NASA’s mission-status report placed their return on March 1, 2016.
That context explains why the clip resonates: a demanding research outpost briefly became the setting for a low-tech birthday gag. A few minutes of play did not turn the costume into scientific equipment, nor did Kelly spend his year in orbit wearing it.
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Was Tim Peake genuinely frightened?
The footage makes Peake appear startled, and the chase is clearly staged as a surprise. But the available reporting cannot establish how frightened he really was or how long he believed the threat was real. It is more accurate to describe a playful, planned practical joke than an attack or an episode of genuine danger.
The costume also appears to have required advance coordination and cargo space. A contemporary criticism questioned whether crew time, launch mass, and attention should be devoted to a gag on a tightly supplied station. That is an opinion, not a measured finding about this costume’s mass or operational cost. NASA later included the episode in its own account of life and camaraderie aboard the ISS.
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What “ape in space” gets wrong
- No animal was sent into orbit: “Ape” is headline shorthand for an astronaut in a gorilla suit.
- Kelly did not live in the costume: He spent roughly a year in space, but wore it for this brief prank.
- Peake was not attacked: The scene was a controlled practical joke between crewmates.
- It was not an experiment: The scientific mission concerned long-duration human spaceflight, not the costume.
So the accurate version of the viral story is simple: Mark Kelly arranged a birthday delivery, Scott Kelly hid in a storage bag, and Tim Peake encountered a gorilla in the one place where a chase must be conducted by floating.
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