A RUSSIAN actress became the latest member of the International Space Station (ISS) crew on Tuesday as she embarked on a 12-day mission to shoot the first movie in outer space.
Alongside two cosmonauts and a film director, Yulia Peresild, 37, launched on a Soyuz MS-19 craft to the station, which orbits Earth at an altitude of around 220 miles (354km).
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Peresild and director Klim Shipenko, 38, took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9.55am UK time (04:55am ET), footage broadcast by Russian TV showed.
They belatedly docked at the ISS at 1:22pm BST after a technical fault forced mission commander Anton Shkaplerov to switch to manual control.
The veteran cosmonaut safely guided the Soyuz capsule for the final few metres of approach before making contact with an ISS docking station.
Communications issues caused by poor weather conditions on Earth also delayed the docking by a few minutes, according to Russian broadcasters.
“Welcome to the ISS!” Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said on Twitter.
The team worked through leak checks and pressurising the capsule before the hatch of the Soyuz capsule was opened at 4:00pm UK time.
Wearing a red flight suit, Peresild glided onto the station followed by Shipenko, who is also a producer on the project.
They will apparently waste no time getting footage for the flick, having already carried out some filming on the three-hour flight up.
The movie makers travelled in a Soyuz MS-19 spaceship for a 12-day mission at the ISS to film scenes for “The Challenge”.
The movie’s plot, which has been mostly kept under wraps along with its budget, was revealed by Russia’s space agency Roscosmos to centre around a female surgeon who is dispatched to the ISS to save an astronaut.
Clad in a flight suit, director Shipenko called the film “an experiment” at an online press conference on Monday.
“Some things will work out and some things won’t,” he conceded.
Shipenko and Peresild are expected to return to Earth on 17 October in a capsule with cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, who has been on the ISS for the past six months.
They have spent weeks undergoing training, including tests on a centrifuge and flights in zero gravity.
SPACE RACE
The launch came just weeks after that of the first all-civilian crew riding aboard a rocket and capsule developed by SpaceX.
That adds an element of decades-long Russia-United States competition to the flight. Tom Cruise plans to film his own movie in space later this month.
“This movie is built around a story of an ordinary person… a doctor who had nothing to do with space exploration and never thought about it is offered to travel to the ISS… and save a cosmonaut’s life,” director and actor Klim Shipenko told a news conference last month.
The professional cosmonauts in the crew will also be seen in the movie.
“I won’t be starring in it but still I will need to figure out how a movie is produced in such an unusual place as outer space,” said commander Anton Shkaplerov.
Lead actress Yulia Peresild said she has learned how to be her own make-up artist and costume designer.
“It will not be on the same level as on Earth, but we will do our best. We are ready for it,” she said.
“It is a bit too late to be afraid because we’ve come so far, there is Baikonur ahead and a lot of things (to do) and to be honest, there is just no time left for fear.”
Director Shipenko, who is 1.9 metres (6 feet 2 inches) tall, said his height makes training inside the spacecraft – and the upcoming trip – not very comfortable.
But accommodations will be made in the future, he said, adding: “It is okay. I will fly now as it is, but when we do the sequel about travel to Mars, then they promise there will be a better seat.”
What is the ISS?
Here’s what you need to know about the International Space Station…
- The International Space Station, often abbreviated to ISS, is a large space craft that orbits Earth and houses astronauts who go up there to complete scientific missions
- Many countries worked together to build it and they work together to use it
- It is made up of many pieces, which astronauts had to send up individually on rockets and put together from 1998 to 2000
- Ever since the year 2000, people have lived on the ISS
- Nasa uses the station to learn about living and working in space
- It is approximately 250 miles above Earth and orbits around the planet just like a satellite
- Living inside the ISS is said to be like living inside a big house with five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a gym, lots of science labs and a big bay window for viewing Earth
RUSSIAN CASH GRAB
Russian space agency Roscosmos announced the project in May.
The “space drama” is being co-produced by the flamboyant head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, and state-run network Channel One.
The launch comes at a challenging time for Russia’s space industry, which is struggling to secure state funding as the Kremlin prioritises military spending.
Compared to the Soviet era – when Moscow launched the first satellite Sputnik and sent the first man, Yuri Gagarin, into space – Russia has struggled to innovate.
The country’s space agency is still reliant on Soviet-designed technology and has faced a number of setbacks, including corruption scandals and botched launches.
Russia is also falling behind in the global space race, facing tough competition from the United States and China, with Beijing showing growing ambitions in the industry.
Roscosmos was also dealt a blow after SpaceX last year successfully delivered astronauts to the ISS, costing Russia its monopoly for journeys to the orbital station.
But for political analyst Konstantin Kalachev, the space film is a matter of PR and a way to “distract” Russians from the “problems” that Roscosmos is facing.
“This is supposed to inspire Russians, show how cool we are, but I think Russians have completely lost interest in the space industry,” Kalachev said.
In a bid to spruce up its image and diversify its revenue, Russia revealed this year it would be reviving its space tourism program to ferry fee-paying adventurers to the ISS.
After a decade-long pause, Russia will send two Japanese tourists – including billionaire Yusaku Maezawa – to the ISS in December, capping a year that has been a milestone for amateur space travel.
USA BEHIND
Last month, SpaceX completed the first all-civilian mission to space, taking four untrained astronauts on a three-day loop around the Earth’s orbit.
The trip followed the missions of billionaire Richard Branson, who spent several minutes in weightlessness in July, and of Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, who completed a similar mission just days later.
Cruise, 58, is to film his own project on the station sometime in October after travelling there on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
The Mission Impossible star, who’s known for performing many of his own stunts, will be joined by 55-year-old director Doug Liman.
Further details are being kept tightly under wraps, although it’s understood that Liman has written a draft screenplay for the project.
Nasa announced the money-making scheme last year, and it appears that Roscosmos are trying to beat them to it.
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Find out more about science
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