Soyuz spacecraft to bring the next space tourist to the international space station (ISS) in March, the Associated Press reported.

Charles Simonyi, a native of Hungary who made his fortune in computer software, is set to visit the international space station on March 9, according to Space Adventures, which arranged the trip through Russia’s space agency.

Simonyi would be the fifth space tourist to pay the Virginia-based company an estimated $US20 million ($A26.23 million) to $US25 million ($A32.8 million) for the privilege.

The most recent, Texas businesswoman Anousheh Ansari, returned to Earth last month after a 10-day trip.

Simonyi is training for the eight-day trip in Star City, Russia.

Simonyi was born in Budapest and earned a doctorate in computer science at Stanford University.

He worked at Xerox Corp, then Microsoft Corp, where he helped design the popular Word and Excel programs, before founding his own software engineering company.

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