Russia has chosen a famous actress and an award-winning director to fly to the International Space Station and make what it calls the first movie in space.

Yulia Peresild, 36, and Klim Shipenko, 37, will blast off in a Russian rocket from Baikonur cosmodrome on 5 October.

Actor Alena Mordovina, 33, together with camera director Alexei Dudin, 40, were nominated for a reserve crew.

Russia’s Roscosmos space agency in a statement on Thursday said the crew will be delivered to the International Space Station, which orbits Earth at an altitude of around 220 miles (354 km).

“Among other things, they will have to take centrifuge tests, vibration stand tests, perform introductory and training flights on a zero-gravity plane, undergo parachute training,” Roscosmos said.

The drama has the working title Challenge. Russia's Roscosmos space agency says it wants to show space opening up for a wider range of people.

In October 2020, Russia sent the last crew carrying a U.S. member to the International Space Station, marking an end to a long dependency as the United States revives its own crew launch capability in an effort to drive down the cost of sending astronauts to space.