A Kazakh astronaut will take the space tourist's seat on the Russian Soyuz spaceship that is slated to dock with the International Space Station next autumn, local media reported Wednesday.
The astronaut, taking one of the three seats, will carry out his professional mission during the flight and stay in the ISS, Itar-Tass and Interfax cited Federal Space Agency Director Anatoly Perminov as saying.
The Kazakh space agency will pay for the 10-12 days of flight and mission, he said, noting that the first part of the payment documents has been signed and the second will be signed in the later half of this year.
The Russian space agency will continue another space tourism program, in which a U.S. company has ordered a special spacecraft for its clients, Perminov said.
There have been so far six paid visitors to the ISS since California businessman Dennis Tito became the world's first space tourist in May 2001. He paid 20 million U.S. dollars for an eight-day space trip.
The latest tourist to the ISS was U.S. computer game developer Richard Garriott, also son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, in October 2008.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
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