(Roscosmos)
Russia launched the Soyuz-2.1a rocket with the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft.
In addition to a professional astronaut, the crew also included an actress and a director who will shoot the first feature film from space at the station.
Roscosmos notes that this mission made it possible to work out fast preparation for the flight of people who were not previously associated with astronautics.
Initially and until recently, manned astronautics served exclusively military and scientific purposes.
Before the flight, professional astronauts undergo a rigorous selection process, and then for more than one year they acquire the skills necessary to control a spacecraft and work in space.
But over the past couple of decades, this paradigm has been gradually changing.
In the 2000s, Roscosmos launched space tourists to the ISS several times, and recently SpaceX began to engage in tourist flights to low-earth orbit.
In addition, flight requirements are gradually changing.
So, in the recent Inspiration4 mission, there was not a single professional astronaut, or at least a person trained in NASA and other space agencies.
In parallel with this, new tasks for space missions appear.
For example, in May 2020, the head of NASA announced that the agency would help Tom Cruise shoot part of the first feature film aboard the ISS.
It was assumed that he will travel to the station in 2022 aboard the Crew Dragon, but in the end the actor did not enter the announced crew and there are no new details about plans for filming in space yet.
In September 2020, Roscosmos announced similar plans, announcing the recruitment of a crew of one professional cosmonaut and two members of the film crew.
In mid-May 2021, Roscosmos announced the composition of the crew: Anton Shkaplerov became the commander and flight engineer of the mission. He’s been 3 time in space before.
The crew included the actress Yulia Peresild (with the backup of Alena Mordovina), and the director and cameraman Klim Shipenko (backed up by Alexey Dudin).
Roscosmos said the mission would allow for quick training of non-professional crew members: they began training at the end of May.
In addition, this is a flight with only one professional astronaut actually responsible for the success and safety of the flight.
The Soyuz-2.1a rocket was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome at 11:55 local time.
The spacecraft with the crew flew to the station according to a two-turn scheme, and they arrived at the ISS in three hours and 17 minutes.
Peresild and Shipenko will spend 12 days at the station, filming material for the film "Challenge".
On October 17, they will return to Earth together with cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft.
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