Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa back on Earth after 12-day space voyage
- The fashion magnate, his assistant Yozo Hirano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin landed on the Kazakhstan steppe
- Maezawa, who shared videos of his daily life aboard the ISS, plans to take eight people with him on a 2023 mission around the moon
A Japanese billionaire returned to Earth on Monday after spending 12 days on the International Space Station, where he made videos about performing mundane tasks in space including brushing teeth and going to the bathroom.
Footage from the landing site, around 150km southeast of the central Kazakhstan town of Zhezkazgan, showed the trio smiling after being helped out of the Soyuz descent module and into evacuation vehicles in freezing, foggy conditions.
“The crew is feeling good,” a commentator on NASA TV said, translating remarks from Russian mission control.
Russia’s defence ministry had said on Sunday that Maezawa and Hirano were set to be surprised by recovery crews with a traditional Japanese noodle dish.
Their journey marked Russia’s return to space tourism after a decade-long pause that saw the rise of competition from the United States.