Maezawa, an eccentric internet fashion mogul, and Hirano will be on board the ISS for 12 days.
A Japanese billionaire arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday in a six-hour flight in a Soyuz spacecraft, a mission that marked the return of the Russian space agency to orbital tourism after years of difficulties.
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, 46, his assistant, Yozo Hirano, and professional cosmonaut Alexander Missurkin, who brought them to fruition, boarded the ISS at 4:11 p.m. GMT, according to images relayed by the Russian Space Agency. Roscosmos.
His Soyuz had docked at the orbital station at 1:40 p.m., six hours after taking off from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Maezawa, an eccentric internet fashion mogul, and Hirano will be on board the ISS for 12 days.
The Russian Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft with three crew members on board, including the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, today it successfully docked to the International Space Station (ISS), reported the Russian agency Roscosmos.
The coupling to the Poisk module of the ISS occurred at 1340 GMT in automatic mode, as planned.
Apart from the space tourist Maezama, the Soyuz brought his assistant Yozo Hirano and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Misurkin to the orbital platform.
It is the first time that two space tourists have traveled in the same spacecraft to the ISS and the first tourist space flight to the orbital platform since 2009, when Canadian Guy Laliberté, founder of the Cirque du Soleil, last stepped on the station.
Maezawa, 46, and Hirano will stay at the station for twelve days. The businessman’s assistant, the thirtieth 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.
They also carry 162 kilograms of cargo, including materials for experiments, hygiene products, food rations and 13 kilograms of fresh fruit, as well as letters, gifts from friends and family for the two cosmonauts who already inhabit the ISS.
Two hours after docking, the gates will open and the three crew members will be greeted 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. (I)
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