10/18/2021

Soyuz MS-18 “Y. A. Gagarin” Spacecraft Safely Returns back to Earth the first-ever film crew

Three Optolink's TRS-500 fiber-optic gyroscopes, installed into control system of Descent Module of the latest Soyuz modification,  Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, successfully executed their mission during landing. The Soyuz MS-18 “Y. A. Gagarin” spacecraft landed in Kazakhstan on 17 October 2021, at 04:36 UTC (09:36 local time, 00:36 EDT), with Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, spaceflight participants actress Yulia Peresild and film director Klim Shipenko. The landing module safely landed on-target about 148 kilometers southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. All descent operations and landing went normally and the crew is feeling well. Soyuz MS-18 launched and arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on April 9 with cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov, as well as NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei. Peresild and Shipenko arrived at the ISS on October 5 along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Anton Skaplerov on Soyuz MS-19. Both Peresild and Shipenko have made the trip to the station as spaceflight participants to film scenes for a future Russian movie called “The Challenge.”  Peresild and Shipenko 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.  For the film, Shipenko has the role of director, while Peresild is the lead actress.