On December 8 at 07:38 UTC, a Russian Soyuz 2.1a launched the Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft into orbit from site 31-6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Onboard were cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin and two paying passengers: Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano. 

After a nine-minute flight into orbit, the Soyuz spacecraft separated from the third stage of its rocket and deployed its solar panels and antennas to begin its quick four-orbit rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS). The Soyuz typically does a two-orbit rendezvous, but that requires the ISS to do some orbital maneuvers, which likely would have “required an undesirable decrease in the ISS’ … altitude”. The Soyuz docked to the Poisk docking module at 13:38 UTC, and after the usual leak checks, the crew was welcomed aboard.

Yusaku and Hirano’s flight is the third commercial flight to the ISS in the past decade or so and the second this year, and they will be the second and third Japanese civilians to go to space. A new Soyuz is being used for the short twelve-day mission to allow Yusaku to gain some spaceflight experience prior to his flight around the Moon on a SpaceX Starship, which is currently scheduled for 2023 but may actually take place later than that. Like the previous tourist trips to the ISS, this one was organized by Space Adventures.

In addition to the people, the Soyuz delivered 162 kilograms of supplies to the ISS.

One interesting historical note about this flight is that the first Japanese citizen ever to go into space, journalist Toyohiro Akiyama, made a trip to Mir in December 1990 on Soyuz TM-11. He stayed there for eight days before returning to Earth and made the first news reports from space.

More Information

Roscosmos press release (Russian)

Launch video