Russian film crew lands after shooting in space

After a three-and-a-half-hour journey from the International Space Station, a Soyuz space capsule carrying a cosmonaut and two Russian filmmakers has landed in Moscow.

After entering Earth’s atmosphere, the capsule descended under a red-and-white striped parachute and landed upright in Kazakhstan’s steppes at 0435 GMT Sunday, with Oleg Novitskiy, Yulia Peresild, and Klim Shipenko aboard.

Actress Peresild and film director Shipenko rocketed to the space station on October 5 for a 12-day stint to film segments of a 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.

Novitskiy, who spent more than six months aboard the space station, is to star as the ailing cosmonaut in the movie.

Ground crews extracted the three space flyers from the capsule and placed them in seats set up nearby as they adjusted to the pull of gravity after the landing, which sent plumes of dust flying high in the air.
They were then taken to a medical tent to be examined.

Everyone appeared to be in good health and good spirits. As journalists gathered around her, Peresild smiled and held a large bouquet of white flowers. She did, however, express a sense of melancholy.

Today I’m feeling a little down. It seemed like a long time, but I didn’t want to leave when everything was over, Peresild said on state television.

The transfer to the medical tent was delayed for about 10 minutes while crews shot several takes of Peresild and Novitskiy in their seats for the film. More scenes will be shot on Earth for the film, the release date of which is unknown.

Russia’s Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, Americans Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough, and Megan McArthur, European Space Agency’s Thomas Pesquet, and Japan’s Aki Hoshide remain aboard the space station.