The world's first spacecraft with a film crew entered the orbit

According to RIA Novosti, the first ever space film crew includes director Klim Shipenko, actress Yulia Peresild and professional cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov. Also, for the first time in history, a ship is piloted by one commander without the help of an onboard engineer.

The docking of the spacecraft with the station was planned at 15.12 Moscow time, but took place 10 minutes later.

“3.5 hours later, he arrived at the ISS, due to the failure of the automatic rendezvous system“ Kurs ”at the station, the spacecraft docking was performed manually by Shkaplerov”, - the message says.

It is expected that within 12 days the "kino crew" will be filming the first feature film in space "Call" on the ISS, and on October 17 Shipenko and Peresild will return to Earth on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft with cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky.

Now the 65th expedition is working at the station, consisting of the Russians Oleg Novitsky and Peter Dubrov, the Americans Mark Vande Hai, Shane Kimbrow and Megan MacArthur, the Japanese Akihiko Hoshide and the station commander, the Frenchman Tom Peske.

Cosmonaut Oleg Artemiev, actress Alena Mordovina and cameraman Alexei Dudin trained as a backup crew with Peresild and Shipenko. Following the training results, Mordovina and Dudin were offered to join the cosmonaut corps.

As the director Klim Shipenko noted, the plot of the space film is dedicated to an astronaut who lost consciousness on board the ISS.

“Doctors examine him remotely and assess his condition as moderate. An astronaut cannot be sent to Earth - his body will not withstand the overloads upon entering the atmosphere, so a decision is made that Zhenya, a doctor from Earth, will fly to the ISS station. From this moment the most unique thing begins - shooting in real space. This has never happened, not only in the history of cinema, but also in history in general”, - said the director.

The director noted that the space industry and the film industry will converge in the "Challenge" so that viewers around the world "feel high in orbit".

Earlier it was reported that the head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin invited his American billionaire colleagues Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos to launch the first ever space cinema crew, but they did not accept his invitation.