Earlier in the day, the ISS lost its orientation in space while testing engines of the Soyuz MS-18 manned spacecraft, which will bring the “cinema crew” back to Earth this weekend.
Previously, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov told the Moscow region-based mission control centre that they had “received an emergency message from colleagues [from the US segment of the ISS] about the loss of orientation”.
The centre explained that this was a test of the Soyuz MS-18 motion control system, which is usually carried out with activated engines.
The Soyuz MS spacecraft carrying the International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 66 docked with the ISS on 5 October, bringing actress Yulia Peresild, movie director Klim Shipenko and cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov to the station. The “cinema crew” arrived at the ISS to shoot the first feature film in space known by the working title “Challenge”. They were welcomed by an international crew of Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov; NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur; Japan’s Aki Hoshide; and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency.