Japanese space tourists Yusaku Maezawa and Yozo Hirano, together with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, opened the hatches between the Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft and the International Space Station (ISS). The event is broadcast on Wednesday, December 8, on the Roscosmos website .
The Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with a manned spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Wednesday at 10:38 Moscow time. Later she docked to the ISS.
At the cosmodrome, when leaving the Cosmonaut hotel, the crew of the ship was conducted to the song "Grass at Home" in Japanese. At the same time, Maezawa and Hirano became the first tourists to arrive on the ISS in 12 years.
The participants of the flight will stay on the ISS for 12 days, they will return to Earth on December 20.
Currently, Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Peter Dubrov, Americans Mark Vande Hai, Raja Chari, Kayla Barron and Tom Marshburn are on the station. The European Space Agency astronaut, German Matthias Maurer, is also present on the ISS.
