Ethiopia, Oct. 5 -- Addis Ababa, October 5, 2021 (Walta) - In a historic first, Russia is set to launch an actor and a film director into space to make a feature film in orbit a project the nation's space chief has hailed as a chance to raise the prestige of Russia's space program.

Actor Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko are set to blast off Tuesday for the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft together with cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, a veteran of three space missions. After 12 days on the space outpost, Peresild and Shipenko will return to Earth with another Russian cosmonaut.

The crew plans to film segments of a new movie titled "Challenge" about a surgeon summoned to rush to the space station to save a cr...