Japanese tycoon takes off for International Space Station

A Japanese billionaire and his producer have blasted off into space as the first self-paying space tourists in more than a decade.

Fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa and producer Yozo Hirano, who plans to film the mission, blasted off for the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.

The trio lifted off as scheduled at 12.38pm (7.38am GMT) aboard Soyuz MS-20 from the Russia-leaded Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan.

Mr Maezawa and Mr Hirano are scheduled to spend 12 days in space.

The two will be the first self-paying tourists to visit the space station since 2009. The price of the trip has not been disclosed.

“I would like to look at the Earth from space. I would like to experience the opportunity to feel weightlessness,” Mr Maezawa said during a pre-flight news conference on Tuesday.

“And I also have a personal expectation: I’m curious how the space will change me, how I will change after this space flight.”

A company that organised the flight said Mr Maezawa compiled a list of 100 things to do in space after asking the public for ideas.

The list includes “simple things about daily life to maybe some other fun activities, to more serious questions as well”, Space Adventures president Tom Shelley said.

“His intention is to try to share the experience of what it means to be in space with the general public,” Mr Shelley said earlier this year.

Mr Maezawa made his fortune in retail fashion, launching Japan’s largest online fashion mall, Zozotown. Forbes magazine estimated his net worth at two billion US dollars (£1.5 billion).

The tycoon has also booked a flyby around the moon aboard Elon Musk’s Starship, a trip tentatively scheduled for 2023. He will be joined on that trip by eight contest winners.