Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa was set to return to earth on Monday after a 12-day journey into space, a voyage he said he saw as a dry run for his planned trip around the moon with Elon Musk's SpaceX in 2023.
ZHEZKAZGAN, Kazakhstan - Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa returned to Earth on Monday after a 12-day journey into space, ending a practice run for his planned trip around the moon with Elon Musk's SpaceX in 2023.
Maezawa, a space enthusiast, made the trip in a Soyuz spacecraft and became the first space tourist to travel to the International Space Station in more than a decade. The entrepreneur returned to snowy conditions on Earth, with precipitation and sub-zero temperatures at the landing site about 150 km south east of the town of Zhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan.