Space tourism: Japanese billionaire ready for space trip

For the first time in more than ten years, a Russian rocket is expected to launch a space tourist into space on Wednesday.

The Soyuz rocket with the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, his assistant Yozo Hirano and the Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin is scheduled to launch from the Russian spaceport Baikonur in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station at 8:38 a.m.

After a six-hour flight, the Poisk module is due to dock with the ISS at 2:41 pm CET.

During his twelve days on board the ISS, Maezawa wants to work through a list of 100 tasks and have his assistant document this for the more than 750,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel.

The 46-year-old Maezawa is the first space tourist for the Russian space agency Roskosmos since 2009. In recent years, Russia has left this source of income to western space companies.

Since the US is no longer dependent on Russian Soyuz missiles, Maezawa got the chance to fly into space.