Astronauts watch film about abandoned astronaut The Martian while in space

Astronauts on the international space station have watched Matt Damon’s latest film, The Martian, before its release on Earth.

Scott Kelly is currently spending a year on the space station where he and the rest of the crew killed time watching the new film about an astronaut stranded on Mars.

Mr Kelly tweeted a picture of the crew watching the film on the station’s HD projector, pointing at the significance of their mission in one day sending a manned mission to Mars.

The crew are obviously not perturbed by watching disaster movies set in space while actually in space, with an earlier tweet saying they had also seen 2013 thriller Gravity.

NASA advised in the making of The Martian, which is in cinemas in Australia on September 30.