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A Russian rocket carrying a Japanese millionaire has been flown to the International Space Station (ISS) and returned to the country’s space tourism after a decade-long hiatus that saw the rise of competition from U.S. companies.
Fashion magnate Yusaku Maezawa and her production assistant Yozo Hirano left the Russian cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday at 07:38 GMT, an AFP correspondent reported.
It will take just over six hours for the three-person Soyuz spacecraft piloted by cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin to end a major year that many have seen as a turning point for private individuals. space travel.
Millionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson have made commercial tourism flights this year, entering a market that Russia wants to defend.
Crowds at the launch site – including Maezawa’s family and friends – were exposed to the freezing temperature and cheered as the rocket exploded into the gray sky, leaving a trail of orange flame before disappearing into the clouds.
“This has been a long process. It’s very moving. I was crying, ”said Ryo Okubo, a 46-year-old space project lawyer for Maezawa.
“I’m very excited, but he’s also my friend, so I’m worried,” a longtime friend of 44-year-old billionaire Hiroyuki Sugimoto told AFP.
Among the partygoers was a family of three, and it won positions among a million applicants at the presentation. The siblings held hand-drawn banners with Maezawa’s face inside a sunflower and a photograph of a rocket.
After docking in the Poisk module of the Russian ISS segment, the trio will spend 12 days at the station. The Japanese tourists They will document their daily lives aboard the ISS for Maezawa’s popular YouTube channel.
The 46-year-old millionaire has set 100 tasks to be accomplished on board, including organizing a badminton tournament in orbit.
The ISS has an international crew of seven people, including two Russian cosmonauts and a Japanese astronaut.
Space-loving Maezawa also plans to take eight people with him on a 2023 mission to Musk’s SpaceX-operated moon.
He and his assistant are the first private Japanese citizens to visit the space since journalist Toyohiro Akiyama traveled to Mir Station in 1990.
Competing with SpaceX
Before the industry broke down, Russia had a history of taking self-funded tourists into space.
In collaboration with the US company Space Adventures, the Roscosmos space agency has taken seven tourists to the ISS since 2001, one of them twice.
The last was Guy Laliberte, co-founder of Cirque du Soleil in Canada in 2009, the first clown in space.
“It’s been 12 years. We had to be very patient. We had to be very creative. So it’s the culmination of a lot of different people’s efforts, ”Tom Shelley, president of Space Adventures, told AFP shortly after takeoff.
In October, Russia launched its first cosmonauts from space from that trip, and took a Russian actor and director to the ISS, where they shot scenes from the first film in orbit.
Moscow stopped sending tourists into space after NASA withdrew its space shuttle in 2011, leaving Russia with a monopoly on supplying the ISS.
NASA bought all the seats on the Soyuz for $ 90 million per seat – effectively ending tourist flights.
That changed last year when a SpaceX spacecraft successfully delivered its first astronauts to the ISS.
It began buying flights to NASA SpaceX, stripping Russia of its monopoly, and donating millions of dollars to the no-profit space agency.
Although the cost of space tickets for tourists has not been disclosed, Space Adventures has stated that they are between $ 50 million and $ 60 million.
Roscosmos has said it intends to continue growing its space tourism business by launching two Soyuz rockets for such trips.
“We’re not going to give that niche to Americans. We are ready to fight for that, ”said Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin after his release on Wednesday.
But Roscosmos is also facing competition from SpaceX in space tourism.
Earlier this year, a Crew Dragon capsule undertook a civilian mission on a three-day journey through Earth orbit, the first in a historic one.
Next to Russia are Amazon’s Amazon Origin founder Blue Bezel and millionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, who have embarked on their first sightseeing trip this year.
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