MOSCOW, October 6 Roscosmos published a video of a conversation between the artistic director of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater Konstantin Khabensky and cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, who are on the ISS and decided to congratulate the theater on its anniversary in an unusual way.
«When is the theater's anniversary, what date?.. Maybe you can give me an idea, some kind of skit to act out?» — Kononenko asked Khabensky.
The artistic director recalled that the anniversary is October 26, responded to the cosmonauts’ proposal that “they have already begun to write the script,” and emphasized that in orbit Kononenko and Chub can do something that is impossible on Earth.
In addition, Khabensky promised to take the families of astronauts to the theater so that they “understand that they are with us, that we think about them and care about them.” Kononenko replied that their relatives would be happy and this would help them “at least somehow brighten up” the year-long absence of the cosmonauts.
The video also states that three performances will be transmitted to the ISS in a video version, and Kononenko promised that he will watch them with foreign colleagues.
«Before that, I lived calmly, but right when we returned to Moscow (from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where the theater team was present at the rocket launch — Ed.), I went out onto the balcony and suddenly caught myself thinking that every hour and a half now you fly over me. And this is a thought that never occurred to me. Now I live with this thought,» Khabensky added.
The launch of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket on September 15 was dedicated to the upcoming 125th anniversary of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater. The rocket launched the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft into orbit, on which Kononenko and Chub, together with the American Loral O'Hara, flew to the ISS. The rocket was decorated with a poster for the theater's anniversary, and the role of a weightlessness indicator (an object that begins to float at a certain moment and informs the strapped-in cosmonauts about the onset of weightlessness) was played by a toy in the shape of a seagull — the symbol of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater. In addition, the flag of the Art Theater, also with the image of a seagull, went into orbit.
It is planned that Kononenko and Chub will spend 375 days in orbit and return in September 2024. Kononenko, for whom this is already the fifth flight, will become the first person to spend more than a thousand days in space in total; his flight time will be 1,111 days. O'Hare will return in the spring of 2024 after 192 days in orbit.
October 4, 06:00