After spending 74 days in orbit and traveling over 31 million miles (50 million kilometers), the official match ball for the 2018 FIFA World Cup opening match returned to Earth on Sunday, June 3, 2018.
The Journey to Orbit
The ball, an Adidas Telstar 18, was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on March 21, 2018, aboard the Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft. It was accompanied by Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronauts Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold.
Life in Zero-Gravity
While aboard the station, the ball was not just a passenger:
Orbital Match: Cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Oleg Artemyev were filmed practicing their soccer skills and playing an improvised match in zero-gravity within the Japanese Kibo module.
Official Certification: To certify its spaceflight, the ball was autographed by the Expedition 55 crew and stamped with ink markers exclusive to the orbiting laboratory.
Return and Kickoff
The ball returned to Earth via the Soyuz MS-07 descent module, landing on the Kazakh steppe at approximately 12:39 GMT on June 3. It was brought back by Commander Anton Shkaplerov, alongside NASA’s Scott Tingle and JAXA’s Norishige Kanai.
Following its recovery, the "space-flown" ball was transported to Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, where it was used for the opening kickoff on June 14, 2018, in the match between Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Symbolism of the Telstar 18
The ball’s name and design are a direct tribute to the 1962 Telstar satellite, the world's first active communications satellite. The original satellite’s spherical shape and dark solar panels inspired the iconic black-and-white panel design of the first Adidas World Cup ball in 1970.
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