Femi Ashekun with Agency Report/
Russian actress and director blasted off to the International Space Station on Tuesday to make history, just as the United States is set to film the first movie in orbit.
Sci-fi star, William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek is also rocketing into space aboard a Blue Origin capsule next week, making him the second actor to do so after Russian actress, Yulia Peresild.
At 90, Shatner is also set to become the world’s oldest space traveler, breaking the record set by 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk, who was on the debut flight on July 20, alongside Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, his brother, and an 18-year-old from the Netherlands who remains the youngest to fly in space.
The Russian crew is set to beat a Hollywood project that was announced last year by “Mission Impossible” star Tom Cruise together with NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Peresild, 37, and film director Klim Shipenko, 38, took off from the Russia-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan at the expected time of 0855 GMT, with docking scheduled for 1212 GMT.
“Launch as planned,” the head of the Roscosmos space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, said on Twitter.
Led by veteran cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, the film crew will travel in a Soyuz MS-19 spaceship for a 12-day mission at the ISS to film scenes for “The Challenge”.
A live broadcast on Russian TV showed the Soyuz spacecraft ascending into a cloudless sky.
“The crew is feeling well,” Shkaplerov was heard saying in the broadcast several minutes after take-off.
The movie’s plot, which has been mostly kept under wraps along with its budget, was revealed by Roscosmos to center around a female surgeon who is dispatched to the ISS to save a cosmonaut.
Shkaplerov and two other Russian cosmonauts aboard the ISS are said to have cameo roles in the film.
The ISS crew, which also includes a French, a Japanese, and three NASA astronauts, will welcome the newcomers when the hatch opens at around 1410 GMT.
“It was difficult psychologically, physically, and emotionally… but I think when we reach our goal all the challenges won’t seem so bad,” Peresild — who was selected out of 3,000 applicants for the role — said at a pre-flight press conference yesterday.
True to a pre-flight tradition religiously observed by cosmonauts, the crew said that on Sunday they watched the classic Soviet film “The White Sun of the Desert”.
Shipenko and Peresild are expected to return to Earth on October 17 in a capsule with cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, who has been on the ISS for the past six months.
If successful, the mission will add to a long list of firsts for Russia’s space industry.
The Soviets launched the first satellite Sputnik, and sent the first animal, a dog named Laika, the first man, Yuri Gagarin, and the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, into orbit.
Bezos’ space travel company announced yesterday that Shatner will blast off from West Texas on October 12.
“Yes, it’s true; I’m going to be a ‘rocket man!’” Shatner tweeted. He added, “It’s never too late to experience new things.”
Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is a huge fan of the sci-fi series and even had a cameo as a high-ranking alien in the 2016 film “Star Trek Beyond.” His rocket company invited Shatner to fly as its guest.
Shatner’s flight, by comparison to Russia’s, will last just 10 minutes and reach no higher than about 66 miles (106 kilometers). The capsule will parachute back to the desert floor, not far from where it took off.
Virgin Galactic carried founder Richard Branson to the edge of space with five others in July, followed nine days later by Bezos’ space hop. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, meanwhile, launched its first private crew last month — a Pennsylvania entrepreneur who bought the three-day flight and took along two contest winners and a cancer survivor.
Virgin Galactic’s ship launches from an airplane and requires two pilots. Blue Origin and SpaceX’s capsules are fully automated, but the passengers must pass medical screenings and, among other things, be able to quickly climb several flights of steps at the launch tower to get to the capsule — or out of it in an emergency.
“I’ve heard about space for a long time now. I’m taking the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle,” Shatner said in a statement.
Shatner played the role of the USS Starship Enterprise’s commander for three seasons, from 1966 to 1969. He also portrayed Captain James T. Kirk in seven movies, directing one of them. He’s currently the host and executive producer of a History Channel show, “The UnXplained.”
Also launching with Shatner: a former NASA engineer who founded a nanosatellite company and the co-founder of a software company specializing in clinical research. The two took part in the auction for a seat on the first flight. That seat cost $28 million; Blue Origin isn’t divulging any other ticket prices.
A fourth seat on the flight is going to Blue Origin’s vice president of mission and flight operations, who used to work for NASA as a space station flight controller.
A Blue Origin spokeswoman said Shatner, like the others, met all the company’s health and physical requirements.
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