EXCLUSIVE: ITV and ZDF‘s space mystery First Woman has rounded out its main cast.

Ben Miles (Andor, The Crown), Jimmy Akingbola (Bel-Air, The Tower), Katheryn Gallagher (Woman of the Hour, You), Christian Ochoa Lavernia (In the Grey, Neuromancer), Shazad Latif (Wuthering Heights, Nautilus) and Fra Fee (Unchosen, Losy Boys and Fairies) have been joined the drama series.

They’ll join leads Andrea Riseborough and Ashley Walters, and Jennifer Elhe and Alex Hassell, who were announced last week. Philip Martin is the director.

The series, from Lydia Yeoman and George Oakes, follows Claire Reith (Riseborough), a biologist in a groundbreaking research project and the first woman to set foot on the moon, who disappears, throwing suspicion on her fellow astronauts and a rival Chinese base. Thousands of miles away on Earth, her husband, Ben (Walters), searches for the truth. The action switches between Mission Control and the lunar surface as the race against time builds.

Akingbola plays astronaut Dr Henry Evans, in charge of the nuclear reactor that sustains life on the moon, while Fee plays astronaut Dr Declan McAllister, whose bullish demeanor puts him at loggerheads with Claire. Gallagher former NASA astronaut Lucy Miller, now working in Mission Control and Ochoa Lavernia plays Gabriel Ross, commander of the moon mission. Latif plays Inesh Vidhani, the billionaire who is behind the space programme and Miles plays mission director Peter Talbot, a former astronaut now running Mission Control.

First Woman, which is being billed as cinematic in scale and ambition, was an ITV commission out of the UK. ITV Studios-owned Mammoth Screen, Blade Runner 2099 firm Alcon Television Group and ZDF in Germany are attached to co-produce the six-part lunar series, which will dart between space and Earth, blending sci-fi and thriller elements. Alcon Television Group and ITV Studios, with the the latter taking international sales rights.

The scripts come from lead writer Yeoman, Oakes and Ben Schiffer and Julia Stannard is the producer. Mammoth Screen’s founder and Chief Creative Officer, Damien Timmer, is executive producer alongside James Gandhi, Martin, Oakes and Yeoman. Mammoth Screen’s Creative Director, Rebecca Keane, oversaw development of the series. Alcon’s Broderick Johnson, Andrew Kosove, Scott Parish, Diego Piasek and Ben Roberts also serve as executive producers.

Filming is underway in Northern Ireland. UNIT VFX is working with Mammoth Screen and Alcon delivering creative visual effects, while Poli Productions creative exec Rob Carlisle is teaming with Martin and production designer Gillian Devenney to create the lunar vistas. The lunar landscape and moonbase are being housed at Studio Ulster, the UK’s largest virtual production studio.

The series will broadcast in the UK on ITV1 and Scotland’s STV, and stream on ITVX and STV Player, with ITV Director of Drama Polly Hill overseeing production for the network. ZDF has German rights, with Yi Qiao the commissioning editor.