MOSCOW — A film team has reached the International Space Station (ISS), for the world’s first effort to make a feature film in outer space.
Russian actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko took off on schedule from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday.
The takeoff was broadcast live from the Russian space agency Roskosmos.
After more than three minutes, the rocket reached Earth orbit.
The Soyuz MS-19 rocket, with the film crew and cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov on board, reached the ISS by express flight, docking 3 hours and 37 minutes after launch.
“Then the hatch opened at and three Russian crewmates entered the station increasing the population to 10,” a post on the ISS’s Twitter account said.
Immediately after docking, filming was to start, as Peresild said before the launch.
According to Roskosmos, 12 days are planned for filming. The movie has the provisional title Vysov (Challenge) and will tell the story of a doctor, played by Peresild, who has to fly to the ISS to save the life of a cosmonaut who has fallen ill.
According to Russia, it is the first feature film to be shot in the cosmos and not in studio sets on Earth. The United States is also planning to shoot a movie there starring Tom Cruise, but a date has not yet been set.
The Russian film project is also a documentary about the space industry and the cosmonaut profession.
Peresild and Shipenko were set to return to Earth with Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy on Oct. 16, US space agency NASA said, while Shkaplerov will remain aboard the station through next March.
