Soyuz MS-20

Soyuz MS-20 is a Russian Soyuz spaceflight to the International Space Station planned to launch in December 2021. Unlike previous Soyuz flights to the ISS, Soyuz MS-20 will not deliver any crew members for an ISS Expedition or serve as a lifeboat for any crew members on board the station, but will instead fly a short-duration mission, ferrying two paying space tourists to the ISS for a set number of days. The Soyuz will be commanded by a single professional cosmonaut on board, and the two space tourists will be provided by space tourism company Space Adventures, which has already successfully planned and executed seven space tourism missions to the ISS[1][2].

Soyuz MS-20

Mission type	Crewed mission to the ISS
Operator	Roskosmos
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft type	Soyuz MS 11F732A48
Manufacturer	RKK Energia
Start of mission
Launch date	December 2021
Rocket	Soyuz-2.1a
Launch site	Baikonur, Site 31/6
End of mission
Landing date	January 2022
Landing site	Kazakh Steppe
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric orbit
Regime	Low Earth orbit
Inclination	51.66°
Docking with ISS
Soyuz programme (Crewed missions)

Crew

Although no crew members have been confirmed, it is speculated that one of the space tourist seats may go to Austrian airline pilot Johanna Maislinger.[3] The second seat may go to Japanese entrepreneur Satoshi Takamatsu, who was offered a seat on Soyuz TMA-18M after British singer Sarah Brightman pulled out from the mission for personal reasons, but declined due to not having enough time to fully train for Soyuz TMA-18M.[4][5]

Position	Crew member
Commander	Aleksandr Misurkin, Roscosmos Third spaceflight
Spaceflight participant 1	TBA, Space Adventures TBA spaceflight
Spaceflight participant 2	TBA, Space Adventures TBA spaceflight

Notes

Soyuz MS-20 will mark the first flight of a space tourist since Canadian space tourist Guy Laliberté launched onboard Soyuz TMA-16 in September 2009.[6] British singer Sarah Brightman was originally scheduled to fly onboard Soyuz TMA-18M in 2015, although she cancelled her trip before launch.[7]

Soyuz MS-20 will mark the first of at least two completely commercially dedicated Soyuz flights flown by Roscosmos, the second being Soyuz MS-23, which is scheduled for launch in October 2022 and will also ferry one Russian cosmonaut and two commercial astronauts to the ISS for six months.[8]

This flight will also mark a departure from the traditional way space tourism has been done. On previous flights, the space tourist's mission would take place during either a "taxi" flight, where Soyuz lifeboats on the ISS were being swapped, allowing for a week or so-long mission, or during handover periods between crews, where the space tourist would launch with an incoming long-duration crew and land with the outgoing long-duration crew. Soyuz MS-20 is a departure from this model as it involves a flight entirely dedicated to space tourism. American company Axiom Space also has a deal for a similar flight with SpaceX, where an Axiom-hired professional astronaut will fly with three paying space tourists to the ISS on board a SpaceX SpaceX Dragon 2 spacecraft, which is also scheduled for late 2021.[9] Space Adventures themselves also have a similar deal with SpaceX, although instead of going to the ISS the flight will be a free flight tourism mission orbiting at roughly twice the altitude as the ISS.[10]

References

1. Jefferson, Mark. "Space Station Experience".
2. "Roscosmos signs new contract on flight of two space tourists to ISS". TASS. 19 February 2020.
3. "Soyuz MS-20 - Baikonur 31/6 - December 2021". 2 February 2020 – via https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com.
4. Klotz, Irene (13 May 2015). "Singer Sarah Brightman calls off flight to space station" – via www.reuters.com.
5. Foust, Jeff (22 June 2015). "Kazakh Cosmonaut To Take Brightman's Place On Soyuz Flight". SpaceNews.com.
6. "NASA - Expedition 21 Crew Launches From Kazakhstan". www.nasa.gov. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
7. Reuter’s staff (14 May 2015). "Singer Sarah Brightman calls off tourist flight to International Space Station" – via www.theguardian.com.
8. "Коммерческий полет "Союза" на МКС планируется в 2022-2023 годах". RIA Novosti. 27 April 2020.
9. Foust, Jeff (5 March 2020). "Axiom to fly Crew Dragon mission to the space station". SpaceNews.com.
10. Foust, Jeff (18 February 2020). "Space Adventures to fly tourists on Crew Dragon mission". SpaceNews.com.