Russian crew back to Earth after filming first movie in space

The space movie, 'The Challenge', centres around a female surgeon who is dispatched to the ISS to save a cosmonaut.

This handout photo taken and released on October 5, 2021 by Russian Space Agency Roscosmos shows Russian crew member, actress Yulia Peresild onboard the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome.
AFP

This handout photo taken and released on October 5, 2021 by Russian Space Agency Roscosmos shows Russian crew member, actress Yulia Peresild onboard the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome.

A Russian actress and director have returned to Earth after spending 12 days in the International Space Station (ISS) shooting scenes for the first movie in orbit.

Yulia Peresild and Klim Shipenko landed as scheduled on Kazakhstan's steppe at 0436 GMT on Sunday, according to footage broadcast live by the Russian space agency.

They were ferried back to terra firma by cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, who had been on the space station for the past six months.

"The descent vehicle of the crewed spacecraft Soyuz MS-18 is standing upright and is secure. The crew are feeling good!" Russian space agency Roscosmos tweeted.

Actress Yulia Peresild, 37, and film director Klim Shipenko, 38, blasted off from the Russia-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan earlier this month, travelling to the ISS with veteran cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov to film scenes for "The Challenge".

If the project stays on track, the Russian crew will beat a Hollywood project announced last year by "Mission Impossible" star Tom Cruise together with NASA and Elon Musk's SpaceX.

The movie's plot, which has been mostly kept under wraps along with its budget, centres around a female surgeon who is dispatched to the ISS to save a cosmonaut.

Shkaplerov, 49, and the two Russian cosmonauts who were already aboard the ISS are said to have cameo roles in the film.

READ MORE: Russia outruns US in race for first film shot in space

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The mission has not come without hitches.

As the film crew docked at the ISS earlier this month, Shkaplerov had to switch to manual control.

And when Russian flight controllers on Friday conducted a test on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft set to ferry the crew back to Earth, the ship's thruster fired unexpectedly and destabilised the ISS for 30 minutes, a NASA spokesperson told the Russian news agency TASS.

Their landing was also documented by a film crew and will also feature in the movie, Konstantin Ernst, the head of the Kremlin-friendly Channel One TV network and a co-producer of "The Challenge", said.

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