Russian filmmakers land after shoot aboard space station

Moscow, October 17

A Soyuz space capsule carrying a cosmonaut and two Russian filmmakers has landed after a 3 1/2-hour trip from the International Space Station.

The capsule, descending under a red-and-white striped parachute after entering Earth’s atmosphere, landed upright in the steppes of Kazakhstan on schedule at 0435 GMT Sunday with Oleg Novitskiy, Yulia Peresild and Klim Shipenko aboard.

Actress Peresild and film director Shipenko rocketed to the space station on October 5 for a 12-day stint to film segments of a movie titled “Challenge,” in which a surgeon played by Peresild rushes to the space station to save a crew member who needs an urgent operation in orbit.

Novitskiy, who spent more than six months aboard the space station, is to star as the ailing cosmonaut in the movie.

After the landing, which sent plumes of dust flying high in the air, ground crews will extract the three space flyers from the capsule while still strapped in their seats and set them outside as they adjust to the pull of gravity. They then will be taken to a medical tent for examination.

Seven astronauts remain aboard the space station: Russia’s Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov; Americans Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur; Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency; and Japan’s Aki Hoshide. AP