A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying a Japanese billionaire and a reporter for Russia's state news agency TASS has blasted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome.
The Soyuz MS-20 is expected to complete four circles around the Earth before docking with the International Space Station (ISS) after a six hour-flight.
The rocket is carrying Japanese online fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa, his assistant, Yozo Hirano, and TASS reporter Aleksandr Misurkin.
The group is to spend 12 days in space.