" Dreams come true.
Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire, took off on Wednesday aboard a Russian rocket for a twelve-day stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
'Key to launch'!
Soyuz-2.1a rocket with the # SoyuzMS20 crewed spacecraft is ready for launch.
The crew has sealed their helmets.
We are fully prepared for the upcoming launch!
https://t.co/VIfh1evXex
- РОСКОСМОС (@roscosmos) December 8, 2021
This trip marks Moscow's return to orbital tourism, a sector in which Russia has lost ground to private American companies, notably SpaceX, and which is experiencing renewed interest and constitutes a potential financial windfall.
The whimsical 46-year-old Yusaku Maezawa who made his fortune in online fashion, and his assistant Yozo Hirano departed from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0738 GMT.
Their flight is scheduled to last six hours, with docking expected at the Poisk module of the Russian segment of the ISS at 1341 GMT.
"Excited as a child before a class trip"
In the morning, the billionaire, his assistant and cosmonaut Alexander Missurkin, who will pilot the Soyuz, left their hotel in Baikonur to the sound of a Soviet song that is traditionally played for all cosmonauts before the flight.
This song - about cosmonauts nostalgic for their home - was partially sung in Japanese.
. @ NASA TV is live now as a trio aboard the Soyuz MS-20 crew ship gets ready to launch to the station today at 2:38 am ET.
https://t.co/yuOTrYN8CV pic.twitter.com/TWGjSpuOx1
- International Space Station (@Space_Station) December 8, 2021
"Dreams come true," Mr. Maezawa tweeted this Wednesday morning.
“I'm excited like a kid before a class trip,” he said at a press conference on the eve of departure.
Dreams come true.
- Yusaku Maezawa (MZ) (@yousuckMZ) December 8, 2021
Cosmonaut Alexandre Missourkine decided that his companions would have a busy schedule.
He has planned a “friendly” badminton tournament with them in zero gravity.
The billionaire, who has set 100 tasks to accomplish in space, plans to video document his stay on his YouTube channel.
Before that and for long weeks, he and his assistant prepared in Star City, a city built near Moscow in the 1960s to train generations of cosmonauts.
Seven people are currently on board the ISS, including two Russians and a Japanese.
