The grandson of Russian academician and rocket engineer Sergei Korolev, Andrei told Russia's news agency Zvezda about the call from SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Zvezda reported.

According to Andrey Korolev, the academician’s family wrote Musk after the successful launch of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft into orbit. Sometime later, Musk's businessman contacted them and said that Musk was ready to communicate via a video call.

"We talked for 20 minutes," Andrei Korolev noted. "He is a pleasant, very cheerful, very positive person, we laughed a lot. He respects the memory of my grandfather and considers him one of the greatest engineers and outstanding people of his time."

Earlier on Saturday, Elon Musk said he spoke with the family of Soviet scientist Sergei Korolev.

"I spoke with Korolev’s family today. He was one of the very best," Musk tweeted without elaborating.