The first space wedding will go ahead on Sunday after the Russian military gave permission to orbiting cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko to tie the knot with his US sweetheart on Earth, media in Moscow reported Friday.
Malenchenko (41) and Ekaterina Dmitriev (26) will exchange vows during a live link-up with the International Space Station (ISS) as it flies some 400km above the planet.
The Russian had a tailcoat and ring sent to the orbiter last month on a cargo freighter in preparation but the planned ceremony was then jeopardised by military regulations.
While the US space agency Nasa gave its blessing the Russian air force said Colonel Malenchenko could not marry a foreigner without special permission.
The objections were later withdrawn, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported.
Dmitriev, a US citizen of Russian origin, will marry from Houston, Texas, where US ground control facilities are located.
Russia’s space programme has seen a number of bizarre events in recent years such as commercials filmed in orbit. But the short wedding service was being treated as a strictly personal matter, officials stressed.
Neither Nasa nor the Russian side intended ”to make any kind of show out of the wedding”, a spokesperson for the Rosaviakosmos aerospace agency said.
The couple met several years ago during Malenchenko’s training in the United States and started dating last year. The Russian cosmonaut flew to the ISS in April with US astronaut Edward Lu. They are due to return to Earth in October. – Sapa-DPA