International Space Station to house Russian movie crew by relocating Soyuz spacecraft

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will relocate the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft to make room for the arriving guests, adding to the excitement of the Russian movie crew, The arriving crew includes Russian movie director Klim Shipenko and actress Yulia Peresild along with Soyuz commander and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov. The agency informed that the team will be blasting off to the station on October 5 from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, for a couple of weeks-long project.

The early arrival of Russians on the ISS, to shoot a movie, is being considered Russia’s space race victory over the US as the latter also had similar plans. However, Russia grabbed a seat before Hollywood and will set a record for being the first country to shoot a movie in outer space. Titled ‘The Challenge’, Shipenko and Pereslid have set a schedule of 12 days for completing the shoot, following which they will land back on Earth.

Reportedly, the Russians have been preparing for this to happen for a year at Moscow’s Yuri Gagarin Center for Cosmonaut Training. Besides, the crew also received its flight approval on September 16. 

Roscosmos’ this new step is also being considered significant as they were against their cold-war era arch-rivals NASA. The agency had teamed up with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to shoot the first-ever movie in space starring the death-defying action star Tom Cruise. The US lagged behind as Cruise’s ambitious movie collaboration with SpaceX and NASA is unplanned yet, whereas Roscosmos is strapping its belt. The Mission: Impossible star will collab with Edge of Tomorrow’s director Doug Liman, announcements of which were made in September 2020. 

How to watch the docking?

As per details given by the agency, viewers can tune into the docking and undocking process of the Soyuz aircraft on the NASA TV, NASA app and the official website. American astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Roscosmos' Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov will undock the Soyuz starting 5:30 pm (IST) and relocate at the Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module. Interestingly, Vande Hei is set to make a record for the longest single spaceflight by an American after his return to Earth on March 2022. 

(IMAGE: TWITTER/ @NICK_STEVENS_GR)