 US software engineer Charles Simonyi today became the first tourist to return to space. Two years ago, he became the fifth paying space tourist (see this article), when he flew to the International Space Station on a 13-day trip in April 2007.
On 26 March 2009, at 5:49PM local time (9:49AM EDT), he launched again from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan. This time aboard the Soyuz TMA-14, with Expedition 19/20 Commander Gannnady Padalka and Flight Engineer Mike Barratt, who will be moving into the ISS for a six-month stay. They are scheduled to dock with the ISS at 8:14AM Saturday 28 March. Padalka and Barratt's other crewmate, Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, arrived at the ISS on 17 March aboard the space shuttle Discovery.
Simonyi is once again flying to the ISS under a commercial agreement with the Russian Federal Space Agency. He will spend 10 days aboard the ISS, and will return to Earth on 7 April with Expedition 18 Commander Michael Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov, who have been in orbit since October 2008.
The three-man Expedition 19 crew will continue science investigations and prepare for the arrival of the rest of the station's first six-person contingent. Roman Romanenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency, Frank De Winne of the European Space Agency, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Bob Thirsk will launch from Baikonur on 27 May, arriving on 29 May. After all the astronauts are aboard, Expedition 20 will begin, the first with a six-person ISS crew. This mission also will be the first time the crew members represent all five International Space Station partners.
Simonyi will be updating his experiences on his web site.
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