By Nneka Nwogwugwu
On board the ISS, the Japanese billionaire entertained his social media followers by showing how to brush teeth and make tea in zero gravity.
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has returned to Earth after a 12-day journey into space, ending a practice run for his planned trip around the moon with founder Elon Musk’s SpaceX in 2023.
The 46-year-old fashion tycoon and his assistant, Yozo Hirano, parachuted onto Kazakhstan’s steppe at 03:13 GMT on Monday, along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.
When they arrived on the ISS, they joined a seven-team crew who were engaged in space biology and physics research.
The entrepreneur and his assistant returned to snowy conditions on Earth, with precipitation and sub-zero temperatures at the landing site about 150km (93 miles) southeast of the town of Zhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan.
Their return caps a banner year that many have seen as a turning point for private space travel.
Billionaires Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson all made breakthrough commercial tourism flights this year.
