A RUSSIAN actor and a film director rocketed to space Tuesday on a mission to make the world’s first movie in orbit, a project the Kremlin said will help burnish the nation’s space glory.

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) from the Russian space launch facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan and arrived at the station after about 3.5 hours.

Peresild and Shipenko 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 needs an urgent operation in orbit. After 12 days on the space outpost, they are set to return to Earth with another Russian cosmonaut.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the mission will help showcase Russia’s space prowess.

“We have been pioneers in space and maintained a confident position,” Peskov said. “Such missions that help advertise our achievements and space exploration in general are great for the country.”

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.”

Shipenko, 38, who has made several commercially successful movies, also described their fast-track, four-month preparation for the flight as tough.

“Of course, we couldn’t make many things at the first try, and sometimes even at a third attempt, but it’s normal,” he said.

Shipenko, who will complete the shooting on Earth after filming the movie’s space episodes, said Shkaplerov and two other Russian cosmonauts now on board the station — Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov — will all play parts in the new movie.

Russia’s state-controlled Channel One television, which is involved in making the movie, has extensively covered the crew training and the launch.

“I’m in shock. I still can’t imagine that my mom is out there,” Peresild’s daughter, Anna, said in televised remarks minutes after the launch that she watched teary-eyed.

On the space station, the three newcomers joined the station’s commander Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency; NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur; Roscosmos cosmonauts Novitskiy and Dubrov; and Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Before Russia took the lead in feature filmmaking in space, NASA had talked to actor Tom Cruise about making a movie in orbit.

NASA confirmed last year that it was in talks with Cruise about filming on the International Space Station with SpaceX providing the lift. In May 2020, it was reported that Cruise was developing the project alongside director Doug Liman, Elon Musk and NASA.

Last month, representatives for SpaceX’s first privately chartered flight said the actor took part in a call with the four space tourists who orbited more than 585 kilometers high.

Liman told the AP that he was approached for the “impossible” mission by producer P. J. van Sandwijk who asked him simply if he wanted to shoot a movie in outer space. Details have been largely kept under wraps and no updates have been provided on the status recently, but as of January Liman said they were forging ahead.

“There’s just a lot of technical stuff that we’re figuring out,” Liman said.

（SD-Agencies)