Next ISS tourist could fly this fall
Posted: Sat, Apr 4, 2009, 10:46 AM ET (1446 GMT)
The US company that has brokered flights for commercial passengers to the International Space Station said Friday that despite reports of a lack of available seats on upcoming Soyuz missions, there may be an opportunity for a space tourist to fly to the ISS this fall. Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson said Friday that a seat may open up on the Soyuz TMA-16 mission scheduled for launch in late September. A Kazakh guest cosmonaut is scheduled to fly to the station on that mission, but Anderson said the seat may become available either to his company or for a Russian professional cosmonaut soon, for unspecified reasons. The current flight of repeat ISS tourist Charles Simonyi was said to be the last such flight for the foreseeable future because the increase in crew size of the station from three to six people would require reserving all the seats on Soyuz flights for ISS crew transfers. Anderson said Space Adventures was also pushing ahead with plans for a dedicated Soyuz flight with two paying customers, now planned for as early as 2012.
The US company that has brokered flights for commercial passengers to the International Space Station said Friday that despite reports of a lack of available seats on upcoming Soyuz missions, there may be an opportunity for a space tourist to fly to the ISS this fall. Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson said Friday that a seat may open up on the Soyuz TMA-16 mission scheduled for launch in late September. A Kazakh guest cosmonaut is scheduled to fly to the station on that mission, but Anderson said the seat may become available either to his company or for a Russian professional cosmonaut soon, for unspecified reasons. The current flight of repeat ISS tourist Charles Simonyi was said to be the last such flight for the foreseeable future because the increase in crew size of the station from three to six people would require reserving all the seats on Soyuz flights for ISS crew transfers. Anderson said Space Adventures was also pushing ahead with plans for a dedicated Soyuz flight with two paying customers, now planned for as early as 2012.
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