Russians beat Tom Cruise as first to film a movie in space
Veteran Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, actor Yulia Peresild and movie producer Klim Shipenko traveled to the Worldwide House Station on Tuesday. Peresild and Shipenko will probably be filming segments for the film “Problem” — the primary function movie shot in house.
The three house vacationers blasted off on board a Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:55 a.m. ET on Tuesday. The speedy Soyuz delivered them to the house station round 8:22 a.m., regardless of some communications points that led to Shkaplerov taking handbook management of the spacecraft to finish docking with the house station.
The present crew on the house station, together with European House Company astronaut Thomas Pesquet, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan Aerospace Exploration Company astronaut Aki Hoshide, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov, will welcome the trio aboard when the hatch opens round 10:30 a.m.
It is a quick keep for first-time house station guests Peresild and Shipenko, who will spend 12 days on the house station filming earlier than returning to Earth on October 16. They are going to be joined on their return journey by Novitskiy.
“There may be sufficient room in house for all the things,” mentioned Russian President Dmitry Peskov. “You will need to observe proportions. We comply with such flights along with all Russians, we’re additionally nervous concerning the astronauts and need them a profitable continuation of the flight. In any case, house is the place we grew to become pioneers, the place we, after all, preserve a assured place.”
Shkaplerov will keep on the house station and return to Earth in March with Vande Hei and Dubrov on the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft. When Vande Hei lands after his 355 consecutive days on the house station, he could have accomplished the longest single spaceflight by an astronaut in US historical past, based on NASA.
Just a few movies have been shot on board the house station, together with a 2002 IMAX documentary that Tom Cruise narrated. “Apogee of Concern,” a 2012 science fiction movie clocking in at about eight minutes, was additionally filmed in house by entrepreneur and house vacationer Richard Garriott, the son of an astronaut.
However Russia is slated to grow to be the primary nation to shoot a function movie in house.
Peresild and Shipenko, who’re well-known in Russia, have been chosen after the nation’s house company, Roscosmos, opened a contest for candidates in November. Peresild has appeared in numerous Russian movies and TV collection, whereas Shipenko’s 2020 film “Serf” was one in every of Russia’s highest-grossing movies.
The 2 civilians underwent rigorous coaching forward of their house jaunt. Together with understudies, the actor and the director ready by doing centrifuge and vibration stand checks, coaching flights in zero gravity, and parachute coaching, all of which have been lined by Channel One.
The crew has practiced images and filming and utilizing tools that they’re going to work together with on the house station.
Different cosmonauts on board, together with Novitskiy, will help and act as a part of the movie crew since their assets are extra restricted within the house surroundings. The schedules of the astronauts on the house station are already nicely choreographed to allow them to work on experiments and see to crucial upkeep duties and different priorities.
Jackie Wattles, Katharina Krebs, Olga Pavlova and Sara Spary contributed to this report.