Soon a movie will be shot in space! Yes, you read that right. The director and lead actress of what will be the first feature-length film shot in space are set to be ferried to the ISS on October 5. The movie named “The Challenge” is about a surgeon who finds herself sent to the ISS in order to save a cosmonaut’s life, reports the NYT.

10 days of shooting schedule

The plan is to send the actress Yukia Peresild, who plays the protagonist, and director Klim Shipenko to the Russian portion of the orbital outpost for 10 days, according to the NYT. There, the director’s lack of experience of spaceflights is expected to pose challenges and awe-inspiring experiences of an everyday person traveling to space.

The mission will put Russia ahead of the US in terms of shooting a film in orbit, and it’s not clear how much motivation came from wanting to claim that title. Shooting a movie in the real space station will provide a more authentic portrayal of life in orbit compared to other science-fiction films, but as Flinders University space studies expert Alice Gorman notes, there will still be a few elements of the movie that push the boundaries of real science.

Creating virtual environment in real setting

Namely, Peresild’s character will be required to perform surgery, which is something that’s only done on animals for the sake of experiments in orbit. It’s unclear how the setup for a fictional surgery would look like – or if those scenes will be filmed on a set on Earth – but it will be interesting to see how the filmmakers pull this one-of-its-kind shooting in space.

Previously, ISS crew member Thomas Pesquet provided a video tour of one module of the space laboratory. The 360-degree video gives the best look yet at the ESA’s Columbus module, a research facility docked with the ISS, thanks to the NASA space shuttle in 2008. The 75-cubic-meter module is Europe’s biggest single addition to the ISS and was also the first permanent European research facility to be sent to space.