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A cosmonaut, a film director and an actor will launch on a mission Tuesday (Oct. 5) in part to film a movie on the International Space Station (ISS), and you can watch it live.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying the three crewmembers will blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:55 a.m. EDT (0855 GMT or 6:55 p.m. local time). You can watch the coverage live on NASA Television, NASA social media, the NASA website or here and on the Space.com homepage. NASA's webcast will begin at 4:15 a.m. EDT (0815 GMT).

On board will be cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov a veteran of three long-duration spaceflights who will spend another multi-month stay on the space station along with film director Klim Shipenko and actor Yulia Peresild. Shipenko and Peresild are expected to spend 12 days in orbit.

Related: Russian film crew passes medical checks for October launch

The short-duration flyers will film a fictional movie called "The Challenge," which follows a doctor who flies to the ISS on short notice to give life-saving care to a cosmonaut. Russia is seeking to make the first movie in space, and shifted its flight schedule to get ahead of NASA's and SpaceX's plans to support the launch of a Tom Cruise action movie in orbit, according to the New York Times. The Cruise film, first announced in 2020, does not have a launch date disclosed yet.

At a prelaunch news conference, Peresild said that she and Shipenko received basic emergency training for the spaceflight and that they have made accommodations to do their work without the usual film crews, the New York Times noted. For example, Peresild will do her own makeup, and the director will figure out other aspects of the shoot such as lighting and sound.

Neither of the two short-duration flyers have professional spaceflight experience beyond their basic training at Roscosmos. Peresild is well-known in Russia for her work in the country's movies, art films, television series and appearances at the Malaya Bronnaya theater in Moscow, the Times said.

The official Roscosmos website for "The Challenge" says the film is part of a joint scientific and educational project with Channel One, Roscosmos and a studio called Yellow, Black and White. Roscosmos has described the movie as a project meant to show the increasing availability of spaceflight to people who aren't professional astronauts employed by national agencies.

The mission, formally dubbed Soyuz MS-19, is the latest in a series of non-professional spaceflyer launches occurring during the second half of this year across different space vehicles.

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic each ran brief suborbital missions in July, bringing mostly non-professional crews into space including the billionaire founders of the two companies. Then in September, the privately funded Inspiration4 crew spent three days in Earth orbit in a SpaceX Crew Dragon to raise money and awareness for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

And the excitement isn't over. Blue Origin will fly another four-person crew, including "Star Trek" actor William Shatner, on Oct. 12. In December, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and an assistant will make another 12-day flight aboard a Soyuz capsule and the International Space Station through U.S. company Space Adventures.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Russia will launch a film crew to the International Space Station Tuesday and you can watch it live - Space.com

By Staff | on October 04, 2021

On, Tuesday, October 5th, students from the Prescott Unified School District will be making contact with the International Space Station (ISS).

Eleven students in PUSD will speak with astronaut Mark T. Vande Hei and ask questions using amateur radio. Join the students of PUSD and watch this contact event on YouTube youtu.be/hESAlh7Wkg4. This event will be on Tuesday, October 5th starting at 10:50 am, and will run for about 30 minutes.

Congratulations to the students of PUSD for the honor of being selected by NASA to participate in this event!

Is your business listed in the official Prescott Valley Recreation Guide?! 60,000 copies are being printed annually! How can you add your business? Call 928-257-4177 or email info@talkingglass.media or fill out the form atwww.signalsaz.com.

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Students of Prescott Unified Schools Getting Ready to Make Contact with the International Space Station - Signals AZ

A view of the International Space Station captured Sept. 28 by a cosmonaut on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft. Credit: Roscosmos

Photos taken by a Russian cosmonaut Tuesday from a Soyuz spacecraft show new exterior views of the International Space Station, with two SpaceX Dragon spaceships, a Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply craft, and the labs new roll-out solar arrays visible.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, commander of the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, tweeted the photos this week. Novitskiy, cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov, and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei boarded the Russian spaceship, undocked from the station, and relocated the Soyuz to a new docking port Tuesday.

Novitskiy manually piloted the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft during the 43-minute relocation maneuver. He flew the spacecraft in an arc along the length of the space station, allowing Dubrov to float into the Soyuz orbital module to snap pictures of the complex.

All according to plan! Novitskiy tweeted after the relocation. We managed to take unique images of the ISSin the new configuration.

The space station turned to a special orientation, or attitude, for the Soyuz relocation Tuesday. In these photos, the forward end of the outpost is facing up, away from Earth.

A SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule is seen docked to the forward port of the Harmony module. The Cargo Dragon undocked from the station Thursday and returned to Earth with 2.3 tons of equipment and experiment specimens.

A Crew Dragon spacecraft is also docked to the Harmony module, but is not clearly visible in these photos.

The circular, fan-shaped solar arrays of Northrop Grummans Cygnus supply ship are also visible, along with the newly-arrived Russian Nauka lab module, near the bottom of the station in these images.

Two new roll-out solar array wings are also pictured on the right side of the space stations truss backbone. The roll-out arrays were installed in June during spacewalks after delivery to the space station by a previous SpaceX cargo mission.

The new solar wings, produced by Redwire, are designed to augment the space stations electrical generation capability. Two more pairs of solar arrays will be installed on the space station in the next couple of years.

The roll-out arrays unspool like a floor mat, rather than unfolding like an accordion. The arrays are canted at an angle from the space stations original solar panels.

The Soyuz relocation cleared a path for the docking of a new Soyuz spacecraft at the Russian Rassvet module Oct. 5, three hours after launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

CommanderAnton Shkaplerov, a veteran cosmonaut, will lead the Soyuz MS-19 crew for the flight to the space station. Klim Shipenko and Yulia Peresild, a Russian film director and actress, will join Shkaplerov.

Shipenko and Peresild will spend 11 days on the space station to film a Russian feature length movie titled The Challenge. The two-person film crew will leave the station and return to Earth on Oct. 16 aboard the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft with Novitskiy.

Shkaplerov will remain at the station for more than five months. Dubrov and Vande Hei, who launched in April, will also stay behind at the space station. Their stays in space were extended to make room for the short-duration mission byShipenko and Peresild.

Dubrov and Vande Hei will now remain in space for nearly one year before returning to Earth with Shkaplerov in March on Soyuz MS-19.

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Cosmonaut shares new perspective of International Space Station Spaceflight Now - Spaceflight Now

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Russia is about to win a race against NASA to film the first full-length movie in space.

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, plans to launch a two-person film crew to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Soyuz rocket on Tuesday. Actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko are set to climb aboard the spacecraft with cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, lifting off from Kazakhstan at 4:55 a.m. ET.

NASA TV will broadcast the launch live in the video embedded below. The livestream will also include the spaceship docking to the ISS at 8:12 a.m. ET, then show the film star, director, and cosmonaut floating into the station at about 10 a.m.

Shkaplerov will tally his fourth spaceflight as he pilots the spaceship. On the space station, Peresild and Shipenko are scheduled to spend 10 days filming on Russia's side, with the help of cosmonauts. In the movie, called "Challenge," Peresild plays a doctor who launches to the ISS to save a cosmonaut, according to The New York Times.

"I am not afraid," Peresild said in a recent news conference, according to the Times. Still, she added, "fear is normal."

As part of her training, Peresild went on a parabolic airplane flight, which flies arcs up and down to simulate the microgravity of the ISS for about 30 seconds at a time.

"For the first two seconds it's scary," Peresild said, according to the Times. "After that, it's beautiful."

She's poised to beat Tom Cruise to become the first actor to film in space. NASA announced last year that it was in talks with Cruise about filming a movie on the ISS, but no timeline was ever publicized.

Roscosmos announced its own space-movie mission a few months later, sending out a casting call for actresses to star in it. The agency ultimately tapped Peresild and reshuffled its spaceflight schedule to make an October launch possible.

Peresild and Shipenko are set to return to Earth on another Soyuz spaceship on October 16, landing in Kazakhstan just after midnight ET the next day. Shkaplerov will stay aboard the station to carry out a six-month shift, while cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy will finish his shift and return home with the film crew.

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and cosmonaut Petr Dubrov, who flew up to the ISS with Novitskiy, are giving up their return seats for the actress and director. The two men will instead return to Earth in March after spending nearly a year in space. By then, Vande Hei's mission will be the longest spaceflight ever completed by an American, breaking the previous record held by astronaut Scott Kelly.

"I don't think it's really my record I think it would be the whole team's," Vande Hei told Insider in August. "It's just another step forward for humanity. I also don't expect that to be a record that would last very long, because we're doing bigger and better things all the time."

One year in space would be "a drop in the bucket compared to a Mars flight," he added.

Peresild and Shipenko are joining a new cohort of space tourists and amateur astronauts.

In July, billionaire Richard Branson flew to the edge of space, experiencing microgravity as he lingered there for a few minutes aboard a space plane built by his company, Virgin Galactic. Then just nine days later, Jeff Bezos skimmed the edge of space aboard the New Shepard spacecraft developed by Blue Origin, the company he founded in 2000.

In September, SpaceX launched its first tourist crew into orbit. Billionaire Jared Isaacman chartered the company's Crew Dragon spaceship for a three-day flight. The mission, called Inspiration4, included Isaacman and three other people as its crew, none of whom are professional astronauts. The team did, however, complete nearly six months of training to operate the spaceship.

More amateur spaceflights are still to come. In December, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is scheduled to take a Soyuz spacecraft on his own joy ride to the ISS.

Then in February, SpaceX plans to launch three paying customers and one former astronaut to the space station for the company Axiom Space.

This story has been updated. It was originally published on September 30, 2021.

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Watch Russia launch a film crew to the space station on Tuesday - Business Insider

Newswise In an out of this world study, space archaeologists are reconstructing life on the International Space Station (ISS) over the past two decades, to better understand space culture and get an inside look at how astronauts interact with their tools and colleagues when above Earth.

The ability to understand the microsociety of crews onboard the ISS will offer a window into how life in space functions, as humans consider interplanetary exploration. So how is this gravity defying research made possible?

Internationally recognised space archaeologist, Associate Professor Alice Gorman at Flinders University, says ISS researchers wont be able to travel to the space stationthemselves, instead opting to use millions of photographs taken onboard over nearly two decades, to document developments and changes within the station's lifestyle and cultural makeup.

Fortunately for us, the first occupation of the ISS coincided with the emergence of digital photography, says Associate Professor Gorman.

The images include metadata recording the time and date, which become an excavation, linking the contents of images to moments in time. Given that the crew takes approximately 400 photographs per day, images depicting the station interior now number in the millions.

Well eventually use crowdsourcing to help tag and catalogue that huge cache of photos, with the project likely to take several years.

However, the researchers will also be able to get onboard with the help of astronauts conducting archaeological surveys of the ISS interior, to document aspects of life that cant be derived from image analysis alone.

One potential survey is surface sampling for the build-up of dust, hair, skin cells, oil, dirt, food, broken fragments of equipment and other materials, says Associate Professor Justin Walsh of Chapman University in California, a co-investigator on the project.

An aerosol sampling experiment, which collects air and particulates on the station, provides valuable baseline data.

Other techniques include audio recording to identify levels of ambient sound and documentation of specific public spaces, such as eating areas, and, if possible, private spaces such as crew berths.

Understanding how individuals and groups use material culture in space stations, from discrete objects to contextual relationships, promises to reveal intersections of identity, nationality and community.

Research methods will focus on:

Associate Professor Gorman says an often overlooked but important component of operations on the ISS is the return of items to Earth.

The return of items from the ISS can be interpreted archaeologically as a form of discard process. Preliminary analysis of our interview transcripts indicates the complexity of the process whereby items enter the inventory and are subsequently dispersed.

If items associated with the ISS have been discarded on Earth in soil matrices, traditional archaeological excavation techniques could be used to retrieve and analyse them.

Funding statement

This work was supported by funding from Wilkinson College of the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University. The International Space Station Archaeological Project is funded by the Australian Research Council for 20192021 (#DP190102747).

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Space Archaeology study: life & culture on the International Space Station - Newswise

The billionaire space race landed on late-night TV Saturday (Oct. 2), featuring a spoof on Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, Virgin Galactic and "Star Trek," with a guest appearance from a fake Elon Musk of SpaceX.

Owen Wilson stars in the raunchy "Saturday Night Life" skit as a cowboy-hatted Bezos, a nod to the Blue Origin founder's fashion decision before blasting off on his company's first crewed suborbital flight July 20. There are plenty of Amazon jokes, too, in reference to the company where Bezos made his billionaire riches. (Families with young kids will probably want to screen this skit first, due to its content.)

Called "Star Trek: Ego Quest," the skit features a triple-headed battle between the space billionaires vying for public attention this summer Bezos, Richard Branson (from Virgin Galactic, who flew to suborbital space himself July 11) and Musk (whose company sent the privately funded Inspiration4 all-civilian crew to orbit for three days in September, bankrolled by yet another billionaire: Jared Isaacman.)

In photos: Blue Origin's 1st New Shepard passenger launch with Jeff Bezos

"Space is freaking awesome!" the spoof Bezos yells, and the trailer introduces the "crew of random weirdoes" accompanying him on the U.S.S. New Shepard: a "rich kid from the Netherlands" (in real life, Oliver Daemen, son of a hedge fund manager), "Jeff Bezos' brother" (in real life, Mark Bezos) and Wally Funk, who is correctly identified as an 82-year-old astronaut. (Funk had tried to join NASA's Mercury program in the 1960s, but was disqualified in large part due to being female. Bezos invited Funk to join his crew and, we presume, paid for her seat.)

The "midlife crisis of epic proportions," as the skit puts it, includes a race in space between Branson and Bezos during which the billionaires accidentally smash into a space station; "Oops, don't care," the faux Branson says. Later in the trailer, a fake Elon Musk shows up, vowing to beat Bezos at his own game. Also watch for the obligatory jokes about how Amazon treats its employees, and the shape of the New Shepard rocket.

While the SNL skit pokes a lot of fun at the competition between billionaires, and questions why rich people get to fly in space, valuable context comes from knowing that in recent weeks, both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have faced criticism for their safety practices.

Virgin Galactic was grounded pending a Federal Aviation Administration review for deviating from the flight plan during Branson's flight. The FAA reinstated Virgin Galactic's flight status last week after six weeks of work. The FAA is considering turning its attention to Blue Origin next, after scathing allegations emerged concerning its company culture and safety work.

None of the people or companies named in the SNL skit have made comments yet on their various Twitter feeds. This even includes Musk, who made a guest appearance on the famed comedy show earlier this year spoofing himself in skits discussing the dogecoin cryptocurrency he backs, his Mars settlement hopes and even the Nintendo supervillain Wario.

Blue Origin's next crewed New Shepard launch is set for Oct. 12 and will carry William Shatner, who portrayed Captain James T. Kirk on the original "Star Trek" TV series and films, along with three other passengers.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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SNL spoofs Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin and space billionaires with 'Star Trek' skit - Space.com

BEIJING, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) Three Chinese astronauts, the first sent to orbit for Chinas space station construction, have completed their three-month mission and returned to Earth safely on Friday.

The return capsule of the Shenzhou-12 manned spaceship, carrying astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo, touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in north Chinas Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at 1:34 p.m. (Beijing Time).

The first manned flight during the construction of Chinas space station was a complete success, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced.

The return capsule of Shenzhou-12 separated from the spaceships orbiting capsule at 12:43 p.m. under the command of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center. The braking engine of the return capsule then ignited, and the return capsule separated from the propelling capsule.

After the return capsule landed successfully, the ground search team arrived at the landing site. This is the first time that the Dongfeng landing site was used in the search and retrieval of the manned spacecraft. The medical personnel confirmed that the astronauts were in good health, after the hatch of the return capsule was opened.

The trio looked relaxed and waved to the ground crew after they exited the return capsule. Later, they were escorted to a helicopter by the ground crew, according to Xinhua reporters at the scene.

Welcome back home for the Mid-Autumn Festival, the people cheered as the countrys space heroes passed by.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional event symbolizing family reunion, falls on Sept. 21 this year.

The three astronauts arrived at Beijing by plane Friday night, but they will not go immediately back home to celebrate the festival with their families. Instead, they will undergo several weeks of quarantine for a comprehensive medical examination and health assessment, according to Xu Wenlong, a research assistant with the China Astronaut Research and Training Center.

The professional medical personnel will help the astronauts re-adapt to the gravity and environment on Earth, restore their body functions as soon as possible and improve their immunity, through multiple methods of exercise, diet, massage, physical therapy, and treatment with traditional Chinese medicine, Xu said.

The success of the Shenzhou-12 manned spaceflight mission laid a solid foundation for the continued construction and operation of the countrys space station, the CMSA said.

On June 17, the Shenzhou-12 spaceship was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China and docked with the space station core module Tianhe. After the docking, the three astronauts entered the core module and began their three-month stay in space.

On June 23, Chinese President Xi Jinping held a video talk from the Beijing Aerospace Control Center with the astronauts, showing his consistent concern and support for the Chinese pursuit of its space dream.

The construction of the space station is a milestone in Chinas space industry, which will make pioneering contributions to the peaceful use of space by humanity, said Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission.

The Shenzhou-12 crew carried out a series of space science and technology experiments, and tested key technologies for the construction and operation of the space station, concerning long-term stays by astronauts, the recycling and life-support system, the supply of space materials, extravehicular activities (EVAs) and operations, and in-orbit maintenance.

They performed EVAs twice, on July 4 and Aug. 20, respectively.

The first EVAs, performed by Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo, took approximately seven hours. The astronauts accomplished tasks including equipment installation and panoramic camera lifting.

Nie Haisheng and Liu Boming carried out EVAs for the second time, installed extravehicular extended pump sets and lifted a panoramic camera in about six hours of EVAs.

The EVAs tested the performance and function of the new-generation homemade extravehicular mobility units and the coordination between the astronauts and the mechanical arm, as well as the reliability and safety of related EVA supporting equipment.

The mechanical arm installed on the core module played an important role in assisting the astronauts with their EVAs.

It is designed to help the astronauts in the assembly, construction, maintenance and repair of the space station, and to support space applications.

China launched its space station core module Tianhe on April 29 and the cargo craft Tianzhou-2 on May 29. The two completed a computer-orchestrated rendezvous and docking on May 30.

The Shenzhou-12 spaceship then formed a three-module complex with the combination of Tianhe and Tianzhou-2 after it was launched.

The Tianzhou-3 cargo craft and the Shenzhou-13 manned spaceship will also be launched later this year to dock with Tianhe, and another three astronauts will then begin their six-month stay in orbit.

After the five launch missions this year, China plans to have six more missions, including the launch of the Wentian and Mengtian lab modules, two cargo spacecraft and two crewed spaceships, in 2022, to complete the constru

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Chinese astronauts return with first mission for space station construction accomplished - Khmer Times