The future film crew of “The Challenge” undertook their arduous training both in Zvyozdny gorodok and at Baykonur. Specialists chose Shipenko and Peresild from a large number of contestants competing to take part in the space cinema mission. Not only Baykonur, but various mass media all over the world observed the start of the spaceship and its flight rather closely. Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmoc (who participated in the screenplay writing process), and Konstantin Ernst, general director of Channel 1 (the channel financially supported the project), were present at Baykonur control center. The spaceship managed to get docked to the ISS, although there were certain troubles, and the crew captain had to perform the docking manually. Rogozin called the situation “nominal”. He also mentioned that the film crew performed all the pre-start rituals of manned space exploration that exist at Baykonur.
The doctors of the Cosmonaut Training Center assessed the well-being of the cinematographers during a communication session – their condition was normal, without any deviations. In a friendly atmosphere, the expedition participants met with ROSCOSMOS cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky, Peter Dubrov, and a NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hai, who had been working in orbit since April 9 together with NASA astronauts Megan MacArthur and Shane Kimbrough, a European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Peske and a Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, who had arrived on the ISS on April 24.
The director-cameraman of the film "Challenge" Klim Shipenko, who is, by the way, a member of the jury of the 2nd TSIOLKOVSKY Film Festival, held this April in Kaluga, intends to shoot the maximum possible number of scenes in the real conditions of the space station, which will make up 35-40 minutes of the future film. The very next day after arrival, the film group spent the first full-fledged shooting day onboard the ISS. Shipenko manually shot the flight itself and all the time before the docking - these are priceless shots, which, of course, we will also be seeing in the film "The Challenge". In total, the film crew was given 12 days for the space expedition - Klim Shipenko and Yulia Peresild will stay in orbit until October 17.
We wish our colleagues good luck in their work and a safe trip home!