Photo: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP / Getty Images
For: EFE
Tuesday, November 5
Russia brings Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to International Space Station
Russia launched Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano to the International Space Station (ISS) , with which tourism returns for the first time in twelve years on the international orbital platform.
The Soyuz MS – 20 departed from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in the Kazakh steppe, at 06: 38 GMT, as scheduled, with the two Japanese crew members and the Russian spacecraft commander, cosmonaut Alexandr Misurkin on board.
A few minutes later the spacecraft safely separated from the carrier rocket and continued its flight towards the orbital platform.
This is the first time that two space tourists have traveled in the same spacecraft to the ISS and the first space sightseeing flight to the orbital platform since 2009, when Canadian Guy Laliberté, founder of the Cirque du Soleil, last set foot on the station.
Maezawa, from 46 years, and Hirano will stay at the station for twelve days. The businessman’s assistant, the 30th richest man in his country, according to the Forbes list, will film the adventure of his boss, who will relate his impressions in space on his YouTube channel.
The spacecraft will dock with the Russian ISS Poisk module after having made four orbits and six hours of flight.
On board they also carry – kilograms of fresh fruit , in addition of letters, gifts from friends and family to the two cosmonauts who already inhabit the ISS.
Two hours after docking the floodgates will open and the three crew members will be received by the current tenants of the international orbital platform: cosmonauts Anton Skaplerov and Piotr Dubrov, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei , Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron, as well as the astronaut of the European Space Agency (ESA), Matthias Maurer.
The Japanese businessman and his assistant began training for flight in the summer.
“We were training 80 days, “Maezawa acknowledged at a press conference on Tuesday, adding that he will have” a hundred tasks “once on the orbital platform, which will be fulfilled. informing the public.
As for the first thing he will do on board the ISS, the Japanese joked: “Go to the bathroom.” “The flight will be very long and it is surely the first thing we want to do,” he explained.
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