A Russian grocery store chain owner and parliament member will become the next tourist, and the first from Russia, to the International Space Station (ISS), leading business daily Vedomosti reported on Monday.

The 40-year-old Vladimir Gruzdev, from the United Russia pro-presidential party and co-owner of the Seventh Continent grocery store chain, has signed a 20 million U.S. dollars worth contract with the Russian Space Agency, the newspaper cited an unnamed official.

Gruzdev has undergone medical tests in the summer and received approval for a flight to the ISS, said another official from the Russian space corporation Energia.

In early August, Gruzdev, along with a group of Russian researchers, dived 4,200 meters below the North Pole in two submarines and planted a titanium Russian flag on the seafloor to support the country's claim to a vast swathe of Arctic territory.

There have been five self-paid space tourists so far.