MOSCOW, October 19. /TASS/. Film director Klim Shipenko and actress Yulia Peresild proved to be quite well-trained and there were no problems from them on board the International Space Stations (ISS), cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, who returned from the ISS along with the film crew, told an online news conference at TASS on Tuesday.
The conference was organized jointly with Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos, TV Channel One, and the Cosmonaut Training Center.
"Just yesterday, when we were drinking tea in the evening, I told them frankly that at first I was quite biased against them but my attitude changed very soon because they swung into action right away. And they demonstrated a high level of training thanks to the specialists from the Cosmonaut Training Center. I mean to say there were no problems from them on board the station and this is what matters most," Novitsky said.
"We felt quite comfortable with them," he added.
The Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, actress Yulia Peresild and film director Klim Shipenko onboard undocked from the ISS at 4:14 Moscow time on Sunday. The descent module touched down in Kazakhstan at 07:35 Moscow time.
Peresild and Shipenko spent 12 days onboard the ISS. They were shooting the first-ever movie in outer space about a woman doctor who travels to the orbital outpost to save a cosmonaut’s life. The film is a joint project of Roscosmos, Russia’s Channel One and the Yellow, Black and White studio. Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov, Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov also have parts in the movie. Shkaplerov and Dubrov are continuing their spaceflight mission onboard the ISS until the spring of 2022.