Space Adventures - Lunar Mission

Lunar Mission

Space Adventures is offering advance booking for a future lunar mission involving travel to circumnavigate the moon, on a circumlunar trajectory. Pricing has been announced at US$100 million per seat. This mission will utilize two Russian launch vehicles. One Soyuz capsule will be launched into low-earth orbit by a Soyuz rocket. Once in orbit, the manned capsule will dock with a second, unmanned, lunar-propulsion module which will then power the circumlunar portion of the trip. The mission will last 8–9 days. It will take 2–3 days to approach the Upper Stage (Block DM), 2–3 days to approach the moon, there's approximately a 45 minute observation of the moon from 100 km-1000 km above the moon’s surface, and will return to Earth in 2–3 days. Space Adventures has announced that they have sold one of the seats on the lunar voyage for $150 million, and are in negotiations for selling a second seat. They wouldn't reveal the name of the person to whom the ticket was sold but claim he or she is well known. Space Adventures hopes the circumlunar voyage will occur sometime in 2015.