Challenge crew blasts off to make first movie in space

Actor Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko blasted off for the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft together with cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, a veteran of three space missions. Their Soyuz MS-19 lifted off as scheduled at 1:55 p.m. (0855 GMT) on Tuesday, October 5, from the Russian space launch facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan and successfully reached the designated orbit.

Space officials reported that the crew was feeling fine and all spacecraft systems were functioning normally.

Peresild and Klimenko are to film segments of a new movie titled Challenge, in which a surgeon, played by Peresild, rushes to the space station to save a crew member who suffers a heart condition. After 12 days on the space outpost, they are set to return to Earth with another Russian cosmonaut.

Speaking at a pre-flight news conference Monday, 37-year-old Peresild acknowledged that it was challenging for her to adapt to the strict discipline and rigorous demands during the training.

“It was psychologically, physically and morally hard,” she said. “But I think that once we achieve the goal, all that will seem not so difficult and we will remember it with a smile.”