One of Japan's richest men, Maezawa, 46, will blast off from
the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan accompanied by his assistant Yozo Hirano.
On Sunday morning, their Soyuz spacecraft with a Japanese
flag and an "MZ" logo for Maezawa's name was moved onto the launch
pad in unusually wet weather for Baikonur, an AFP journalist saw.
The mission will end a decade-long pause in Russia's space
tourism programme that has not accepted tourists since Canada's Cirque du
Soleil co-founder Guy Laliberte in 2009.
However, in a historic first, the Russian space agency
Roscosmos in October sent actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko to
the ISS to film scenes for the first movie in orbit in an effort to beat a
rival Hollywood project.
Maezawa's launch comes at a challenging time for Russia as
its space industry struggles to remain relevant and keep up with Western
competitors in the modern space race.
Last year, the US company SpaceX of billionaire Elon Musk
ended Russia's monopoly on manned flights to the ISS after it delivered
astronauts to the orbiting laboratory in its Crew Dragon capsule.
This, however, also freed up seats on Russia's Soyuz rockets
that were previously purchased by NASA allowing Moscow to accept fee-paying
tourists like Maezawa.
Their three-seat Soyuz spacecraft will be piloted by
Alexander Misurkin, a 44-year-old Russian cosmonaut who has already been on two
missions to the ISS.
The pair will spend 12 days aboard the space station where
they plan to document their journey for Maezawa's YouTube channel with more
than 750,000 subscribers.
The tycoon is the founder of Japan's largest online fashion
mall and the country's 30th richest man, according to Forbes.
"I am almost crying because of my impressions, this is
so impressive," Maezawa said in late November after arriving at Baikonur
for the final days of preparation.
Maezawa and Hirano have spent the past few months training
at Star City, a town outside Moscow that has prepared generations of Soviet and
Russian cosmonauts.
'Hardest training ever'
Maezawa said that training in the spinning chair
"almost feels like torture".
"It's the hardest training ever done," he tweeted
in late November.
So far Russia has sent seven self-funded tourists to space
in partnership with the US-based company Space Adventures. Maezawa and Hirano
will be the first from Japan.
Maezawa's launch comes at the end of a year that became a
milestone for amateur space travel.
In September, SpaceX operated a historic flight taking the
first all-civilian crew on a three-day journey around the Earth's orbit in a
mission called Inspiration4.
Blue Origin, the company of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos,
completed two missions beyond the Earth's atmosphere. The passengers included
90-year-old Star Trek star William Shatner and Bezos himself.
Soon after, billionaire Richard Branson travelled aboard his
Virgin Galactic spacecraft that also offered a few minutes of weightlessness
before coming back to Earth.
Those journeys mark the beginning of space opening up for
non-professionals with more launches announced for the future.
In 2023, SpaceX is planning to take eight amateur astronauts
around the moon in a spaceflight that is bankrolled by Maezawa, who will also
be onboard.
Russia has also said it will take more tourists to the ISS
on future Soyuz launches and also plans to offer one of them a spacewalk.
For Russia, retaining its title of a top space nation is a
matter of national pride stemming from its Soviet-era achievements amid rivalry
with the United States.
The Soviets coined a number of firsts in space: the first
satellite, first man in space, first woman in space, first spacewalk, to name
just a few.
But in recent years Russia's space programme has suffered
setbacks, including corruption scandals and botched launches, and faced a cut
in state funding.
The industry remains reliant on Soviet-designed technology
and while new projects have been announced, such as a mission to Venus, their
timeline and feasibility remain unclear.
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