The story is based on the Soyuz T-13 mission in 1985, part of the Soviet Salyut programme; it was the first time in history that a 'dead' space station was docked with, and brought back into service.

After contact with the Salyut 7 space station is lost, cosmonauts Vladimir Fyodorov and Viktor Alyokhin attempt to dock with the empty, frozen craft to bring it back to life.

[4] The idea of the film, based on real events to save the Salyut 7 orbital station, belongs to television journalist Alexei Samoletov, specializing in space issues.

A specially constructed shooting pavilion was located in a suburb of Saint Petersburg, as the Lenfilm premises were not able to accommodate everything needed.

For each frame, their own shooting systems were developed, different suspensions and mounting methods were used to realistically show interaction with objects in zero gravity and to ensure a smooth transition to computer animation.

In a special training, the Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft ten times rose to a height of several thousand meters and abruptly went down the parabola, while weightlessness appeared for 26 seconds.

On October 4, 2017, a pre-premiere screening of the film was held in the cinema hall of the State Kremlin Palace, which became the main event of the gala evening dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the launch of the USSR's first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik 1.

In reality, at the end of the repair and resupply mission, which took over three months (not a matter of days as the movie suggests), Soyuz T-13 undocked and re-entered Earth's atmosphere for a normal landing and recovery.

Jean-Loup was indeed on the backup crew of the STS-51-G flight of Space Shuttle Discovery that was launched 11 days after the start of Soyuz T-13 on June 17, 1985.