It is an English-dubbed and re-edited American version of Nebo Zovyot, a 1959 Soviet science fiction film.

Roger Corman acquired the Soviet film for U.S. distribution and hired a young film-school student named Francis Ford Coppola to "Americanize" it.

[1] Like the original Soviet Nebo Zovyot, Battle Beyond the Sun is a tale of a "space race" between two nations competing to become the first to land a spacecraft on the planet Mars; unlike the original, in which the competing nations are the USSR and the US, Battle Beyond the Sun focuses on the fictional future countries of North Hemis and South Hemis.

The names of not only the Soviet characters, but also their performers, and the crew credits as well, were altered on the screen to American-sounding names in order to further disguise the film's origins: thus Soviet stars Aleksandr Shvorin and Ivan Pereverzev became "Andy Stewart" and "Edd Perry", and Soviet directors Mikhail Karyukov and Aleksandr Kozyr became "Maurice Kaplin" and "Arthur Corwin" – and were demoted to Assistant Director status as well.

In addition to preparing a dubbing script free of anti-American propaganda and all references to the USSR and USA, and supervising the dubbing, Francis Ford Coppola slightly re-edited the footage, eliminated the framing "daydream" sequences, and even saw to it that a pastel rhombus shape was matted in on a frame-by-frame basis, to cover the Cyrillic letters CCCP (USSR) which adorned the space station and Soviet rocketships.

According to Jack Hill, who worked on the new version (it was his first paid job for Roger Corman), Coppola's idea was that one monster would look like a penis and the other a vagina.

A short while later, an American rocket, the Typhoon, which is ostensibly having mechanical problems, arrives at the space station and is allowed to dock.

At the dinner, Kornev announces that the Rodina will travel to the planet Mars in a few days, The Americans, Clark and Verst, are taken aback.

He flew another pilotless refueling rocket to Icarus, but since it was not built as a crewed spacecraft, he suffered lethal cosmic radiation and dies.

The film opens with a non-sequitur prologue in which a narrator voice explains space flight concepts.

In the "fear-ridden years following the great atomic war", the world has been divided into northern and southern hemispheres.

Outside in the corridor, Captain Torrance decides to proceed with the flight to Mars, despite Martin warning that their repairs may not hold up.

Paul Clinton is diagnosed with a concussion and cannot go on the Mars mission as planned; he is replaced by Craig Matthews.

Matthews effects an EVA transfer of the two North Hemis astronauts and the Typhoon is abandoned to space.

Meanwhile, back at the space station, the South Hemis superiors decide to send a fuel rocket to Angkor.

As it approaches them, Dr. Gordon and his team appear to gain remote control of it, but something interferes with its guidance system and it crashes into the asteroid, exploding.

A voice-over announces that, although Dr. Gordon and his team did not make it to Mars, they have set the stage for further exploration of space sometime in the near future.