Russia: Channel One premieres space drama The Challenge on October 5

The space drama will show actress Yulia Peresild as an operating surgeon who has only one month to prepare for a flight to the International Space Station required to save a cosmonaut’s life. Part of a large-scale scientific, technical and educational project, the film aims to provide clear evidence that space flights are becoming more and more accessible to the general public, while the accelerated training that the crew have received is likely to prove useful to other professionals (doctors, scientists etc.) launched to space in the future.

Channel One, Russian leading television network, will broadcast the space launch live on-air and online with live commentaries in Russian, English, French and Spanish with no regional viewing restrictions. Live broadcasts in multiple languages will also be available at Channel One Russia’s official YouTube channel. Produced by Channel One Russia and Yellow, Black and White along with the Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities, the international distributor of the film is Central Partnership.

Along with Peresild, the ISS-66 main crew also includes cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov and director Klim Shipenko, while the backup crew are cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, actress Alyona Mordovina and cameraman Alexei Dudin. The Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft with The Challenge film crew is to be launched at 11:55 Moscow Time (UTC+03:00) on 5 October 2021 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The crew is to return to Earth on 17 October 2021.

The training of the crew is a good starting point: the production team has received an crush course training at the Gagarin State Scientific Research and Testing Cosmonaut Training Center that included an introduction to the design and the onboard system of both the Soyuz MS spacecraft and the Russian Orbital Segment of the ISS. The emergency response training they have also received included a water landing and a session inside the airplane laboratory offering short-term weightlessness. After the training period was over, the film crew members passed the examinations.

On 18 September, The Challenge crew left for the Baikonur cosmodrome to receive the final stage of the pre-flight training that includes sessions inside the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft and tests with the Sokol-KV2 spacesuits on. Vestibular and hypoxic training, docking training, cargo and loading training, and briefing sessions will be provided as well.