Tag: Soyuz

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Universe Today

Billionaire finishes up space trip with online flourishes

Yusaku Maezawa video
One of Yusaku Maezawa’s videos featured a drum-playing session on the International Space Station. (Yusaku Maezawa via Twitter)

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and two crewmates have returned to Earth after an 11-day mission to the International Space Station that was marked by online innovations including an NFT drop and a lottery giveaway.

Maezawa, his production assistant Yozo Hirano, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin took a 3.5-hour ride from the station on a Soyuz craft, climaxing in a touchdown amid the steppes of Kazakhstan around the appointed time of 9:13 a.m. local time Dec. 20 (7:13 p.m. PT Dec. 19).

After the landing, the three spacefliers were helped out of the capsule and given medical checks.

The short-duration stay was the first private astronaut trip to the space station brokered by Virginia-based Space Adventures in 12 years. In an interview with The Associated Press, Maezawa said reports that he paid more than $80 million for the adventure were “pretty much” accurate.

“Once you are in space, you realize how much it is worth it by having this amazing experience,” he told AP. “And I believe that this amazing experience will lead to something else.”

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Cosmic Space

Japanese billionaire doubles down on space tours

Yusaku Maezawa
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is planning two trips to space. (Photo via Space Adventures)

For some people, once is not enough when it comes to traveling to space — even if each trip costs tens of millions of dollars. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is apparently one of those people.

Virginia-based Space Adventures announced today that Maezawa and his production assistant, Yozo Hirano, will be taking a 12-day trip to the International Space Station, and documenting the adventure for Maezawa’s YouTube channel.

The Japanese pair will fly to the station and back aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft that’s due for launch on Dec. 8, under the command of Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin. All the medical checks have been made, and the trio is due to begin about three months of training at Russia’s Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City in June, Space Adventures said.

“I’m so curious, ‘what’s life like in space?'” Maezawa said in Space Adventures’ news release. “I am planning to find out on my own and share with the world on my YouTube channel.”

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GeekWire

Space station trio returns to a pandemic planet

Two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut ended a months-long tour of duty on the International Space Station and returned to Earth to face a viral outbreak that didn’t exist when they launched.

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GeekWire

New trio joins space station crew; SpaceX is next

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and two Russian cosmonauts are settling into their new home on the International Space Station after today’s launch and docking of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

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GeekWire

Dozens of OneWeb satellites go into orbit

Europe’s Arianespace launch consortium today used a Russian-made Soyuz rocket to send 34 satellites into a near-polar orbit for OneWeb’s broadband internet constellation, sharpening a rivalry with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation.

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GeekWire

Space short-timer and two crewmates return home

Hazzaa Ali Almansoori of the United Arab Emirates is carried to a medical tent shortly after he and fellow spacefliers Nick Hague and Alexei Ovchinin landed in their Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. (NASA Photo / Bill Ingalls)

Today’s landing of a Soyuz spacecraft in Kazakhstan brought one of the shortest recent stays on the International Space Station to an end, as part of a plan for one of the longest stays.

The first representative of the United Arab Emirates to fly in space, Hazzaa Ali Almansoori, was part of the returning trio, along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russia’s Alexey Ovchinin. All three seemed to be in good shape as they were brought out of their Soyuz and underwent an initial round of medical checks.

Almansoori spent a mere eight days on the station, under an arrangement with Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency. The other two wrapped up a 203-day tour of duty in orbit.

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GeekWire

Space station crew grows to 9, including Emirati

Space station crew
Nine crew members face the camera on the space station during a video conference. (NASA via YouTube)

Three more spacefliers arrived at the International Space Station today in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, increasing the orbital outpost’s population from its usual six to a crowded nine.

One of the new arrivals is Hazzaa Ali Almansoori, the first citizen of the United Arab Emirates to fly in space.

The 35-year-old fighter jet pilot was sent to the final frontier under the terms of a contract with the Russian Space Agency, and will be returning to Earth on a different Soyuz in just eight days. The cost to the UAE hasn’t been reported, but for what it’s worth, NASA has been paying the Russians more than $80 million for a ride.

The other two spacefliers are NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, another first-time flier, and veteran Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka.

Their Soyuz craft docked with the station just six hours after today’s launch from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

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GeekWire

Spacefliers have smooth sailing after bad trip

Soyuz launch
A Russian Soyuz rocket lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, sending three spacefliers to the International Space Station. (NASA Photo / Bill Ingalls)

NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin finally made it to the International Space Station today, five months after their first trip went awry.

The two spacefliers were due to join the station’s crew last October, but as they were ascending from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, one of their Soyuz rocket’s side boosters knocked into the main core, causing a rare abort and activation of the Soyuz capsule’s escape system.

The capsule was thrown clear of the rocket, and Hague and Ovchinin made a safe but rather rocky ballistic landing. It took weeks to track down the cause of the anomaly — a bent sensor — and ensure that the anomaly wouldn’t reoccur.

It took months more to get the pair back into the flight rotation. Today’s trouble-free launch from Baikonur sent them into space in the company of a third crew member, rookie NASA astronaut Christina Koch.

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GeekWire

Russians report deal to put tourists in orbit by 2021

Charles Simonyi
Space Adventures facilitated two trips to the International Space Station for Seattle billionaire Charles Simonyi, in 2007 and 2009. (NASA Photo via Space Adventures)

Russia’s space agency says it’s getting ready to resume sending private passengers to the International Space Station and back, a decade after the last space tour.

A contract has been signed with Virginia-based Space Adventures to send two non-professional spacefliers into orbit for short-term space station stays by the end of 2021, Roscosmos reported today in a news release.

Space Adventures didn’t issue a statement but retweeted Roscosmos’ news.

Roscosmos said the two passengers would fly on a Soyuz spacecraft that’s currently being built, presumably with a professional Russian cosmonaut in the pilot’s seat. “The execution of all works on the creation of space technology will be carried out at the expense of the space tourists,” Roscosmos said.

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GeekWire

Space station trio rides slashed Soyuz back to Earth

Serena Aunon-Chancellor
NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor is carried to a medical tent shortly after she, Germany’s Alexander Gerst and Russia’s Sergey Prokopyev landed in their Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft near the town of Zhezkazgan in Kazakhstan. (NASA Photo / Bill Ingalls)

A Russian Soyuz spaceship that stirred up an international fuss over a drill hole and an air leak brought three spacefliers back to Earth from the International Space Station without a problem.

NASA’s Serena Auñón-Chancellor, Germany’s Alexander Gerst and Russia’s Sergey Prokopyev touched down in the snowy steppes of Kazakhstan at 11:02 a.m. local time Dec. 20 (9:02 p.m. PT Dec. 19), leaving three crewmates on the orbital outpost.

The homeward-bound trio rode the same Soyuz they took up to the station in June. It’s the same Soyuz that experienced an air leak in August, causing consternation in space as well as back down on Earth.

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