YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS: British singer Sarah Brightman is scheduled to begin training in August or September 2014 for a 2015 flight to the International Space Station (ISS), Russian Cosmonaut Training Center director Yury Lonchakov told Interfax, Armenpress reports.

"Sarah Brightman will start training as a candidate for a short-term flight to the ISS within an international crew at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in August or September. Her flight to the ISS is expected to take place in September 2015," he said.

A Russian space rocket industry source told Interfax-AVN earlier Brightman, who is supposed to fly to the ISS as a space tourist in the autumn of 2015, was expected to begin training at the Cosmonaut Training Center, located in Zvyozdny Gorodok, after the New Year holidays next year.

"According to the schedule of the 45th/46th Expedition's preparations, the British singer's pre-flight training is due to begin on January 12, 2015," the source said.

No contract has been signed yet between the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and the company Space Adventures, although an agreement concerning Brightman's flight to the ISS has been reached, he said.

Brightman is expected to fly in the company of Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen.

The takeoff of the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft is scheduled for October 4, 2015. The guest mission will last for 10 days.

Brightman will have to pay millions of dollars for her ten-day flight to the ISS.

"It is a large sum of money - it is tens of millions of dollars," Roscosmos manned programs supervisor Alexei Krasnov said earlier.

Space Adventures chairman Eric Anderson, for his part, said that information about the price to be paid for this flight is confidential.

Unofficial reports say that Brightman might pay up to $50 million, which is twice as much as the price paid by the first space tourist.