Russia will send two space tourists to the ISS at the end of 2021

Russia has unveiled new plans to send a pair of space tourists to the International Space Station at the end of 2021. According to Roscosmos of the nation, the space agency has signed a contract with Space Adventures Inc., a private space flight company. Space tourists will be delivered to the Russian ISS using the Soyuz spacecraft.

Space tourism – the practice of visiting places for recreational and not professional purposes – is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades. Last year, SpaceX, the private SpaceX company, said it plans to send two tourists to space through the Big Falcon Spaceship, and Russia has already sent many people to its own missions.

Russian space agency Roscosmos announced last week that it has "two spaceplane participants" for short-haul space flights scheduled to take place over a few years. The upcoming trip will be the last of the many space travel trips that the country has offered.

The first space-based tourist to participate in Russian space tourism was Dennis Tito in 2001. A total of seven people have been transferred to the ISS, including Charles Simonyi, who has visited twice. These flights were also in conjunction with Space Adventures.

In November, it was revealed that NASA is also considering the sale of space tourism trips as a possible new source of revenue. The agency expects to be able to make millions of dollars from space sales, but such plans have not been finalized at this time.