spacetoday.net: Space Adventures obtains Soyuz seats

Posted: Thu, Jan 13, 2011, 6:53 AM ET (1153 GMT)
Soyuz TMA-16 launch (NASA)

Space tourism company Space Adventures announced Wednesday that it has reached an agreement with the Russian space agency Roskosmos and RSC Energia to sell seats on future Soyuz flights to the ISS. The seats will become available as Russia increases the production rate of Soyuz spacecraft from the current four per year to five; the additional mission will be a short-duration mission separate from the existing planned crew rotation missions. Space Adventures will have three seats on those missions, starting in 2013, to sell to commercial customers. The company has over the past ten years sold eight seats on Soyuz ISS flights to seven customers, but as the station reached its full six-person crew complement there were no additional seats on Soyuz flights available.