The first in history: the Russian team flew to the ISS for the filming of the film “Challenge”

Back in September 2020, Roscosmos employees announced plans to send a team to the International Space Station to shoot the first ever feature film in space. And today, on October 5, these plans were brought to life – at 11:55 Moscow time, the Soyuz-2.1a rocket with the Soyuz MS-19 manned spacecraft took off from Baikonur in order to dock with the Rassvet module at 15:12 “On the ISS. So far, the flight is going according to plan – seven minutes after the launch of the rocket, the spacecraft successfully entered orbit and now it is waiting for the docking time. It is worth noting that previously a similar desire was reported in SpaceX and NASA, but Russian actors and astronauts were ahead of them.

There are only three crew members on board the Soyuz MS-19 – actress Yulia Peresild (starred in Battle for Sevastopol, Mediator, and so on), director Klim Shipenko (Salyut-7, Text and Serf “) and cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov. After docking with the ISS, this crew will spend 12 days in Earth orbit, filming shots for the film “Challenge” – the film is based on the story of how a doctor was sent to the ISS, who must save an astronaut from death. Actually, the main role in the film will be played by Yulia Peresild, who received such a unique chance to shoot in space after lengthy selections, medical examinations and a training course.

Moreover, real cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Oleg Novitsky, who are already on the International Space Station, will also take part in the filming. What roles they got, of course, the writers do not disclose, but, apparently, one of the cosmonauts will play the one whom the heroine Peresild flew to save. In addition, before the launch, the Soyuz-2.1a rocket was painted in a very attractive design – stickers with the image of Yuri Gagarin and German Titov appeared, plus the developers of the film applied the symbols of the film “Challenge” and other small decorative elements to the body.

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