A Russian actor and director arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday to shoot the movie titled ‘The Challenge’ in orbit. With this, the team is set to beat a Hollywood project that was announced last year by ‘Mission Impossible’ star Tom Cruise together with Nasa and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

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The movie’s plot, which has been mostly kept under wraps along with its budget, was revealed by Roscosmos to centre around a female surgeon who is dispatched to the ISS to save a cosmonaut.

Shkaplerov and two other Russian cosmonauts aboard the ISS are said to have cameo roles in the film.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the mission will help showcase Russia’s space prowess. “Such missions that help advertise our achievements and space exploration in general are great for the country.”

Actress Yulia Peresild, 37, and film director Klim Shipenko, 38, took off from the Russia-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan as scheduled, reports Hindustan Times.

They, then, docked at the ISS at 5.52 pm IST after veteran cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov switched to manual control. “Welcome to the ISS!” Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said on Twitter.

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“Everything was new to us today, every 30 seconds brought something entirely new,” Yulia said through an interpreter during a brief video conference from the Russian Zvezda module, reports cbsnews.

“We just met the rest of the crew, the cosmonauts and astronauts who’ve been living on board the station for some time now. But I’m still in a dream.”

The crew travelled in a Soyuz MS-19 spaceship for a 12-day mission at the ISS to film scenes for ‘The Challenge’. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the mission will help showcase Russia’s space prowess. “Such missions that help advertise our achievements and space exploration in general are great for the country.”