Best-selling British soprano Sarah Brightman, who's best-known for her role in "Phantom of the Opera," is due to begin training for her trip to the International Space Station at the Star City cosmonaut complex near Moscow this week, Russia's Itar-Tass news agency reported Monday. Virginia-based Space Adventures, which brokered the arrangements for Brightman's $52 million, 10-day-long trip with Russia's space agency, declined comment on the report.
Itar-Tass quoted an unnamed Star City representative as saying Brightman would arrive on Wednesday and start her training the following day. The training routine typically runs for weeks. Brightman is due to fly aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule in September in the company of two professional spacefliers. Her trip will come while two of the space station's residents — NASA's Scott Kelly and Russia's Mikhail Kornienko — are in the middle of a yearlong stay in orbit. Brightman's backup, Japanese businessman Satoshi Takamatsu, is also due to begin training this week, Itar-Tass said.
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