Shortly after 8.30 (Italian time) the Soyuz shuttle took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, carrying the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to the International Space Station.

46, one of the richest men in Japan, is accompanied by his assistant Yozo Hirano. The journey will take six hours.

The mission puts an end to a ten-year hiatus in the Russian space tourism program that hasn't accepted tourists since 2009: the last passenger in that year was the Canadian co-founder of Cirque du Soleil Guy Laliberte.

(Unioneonline / ss)

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