First female space tourist blasts into space

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Moscow (dpa) - The world's first female space tourist Anousheh Ansari launched from Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz rocket Monday, heading to the International Space Station (ISS) with the orbiter's new crew.

Ansari, 40, an Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and American astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria blasted off punctually at 10:08 a.m. (0408 GMT) from the Baikonur space centre, Russian mission control said.

Meanwhile, there was concern about the appearance of smoke or vapours on the ISS, apparently emanating from a faulty oxygen generator.

Authorities told the three-man crew to don protective suits with goggles, but said the situation was under control.

"The situation on the ISS is normal, there is not danger, and certainly no fears for the safety of the crew, Roskosmos space agency spokesman Igor Panarin told the Interfax news agency.

The incoming Soyuz is due to dock with the space station early Wednesday. Commander Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria will serve on the ISS for six months while Ansari should return to earth on September 28 with the station's departing crew.

The businesswoman went through the lift-off eyes wide, as footage from NASA, the US space agency, showed. Worried that she was becoming overexcited, Russian controllers told her professional companions to calm her as they embarked on the two-day journey to the station.

"If she carries on turning her head so frantically it may affect how she feels and spoil her first days in orbit, and we want her to receive maximum enjoyment from the flight," flight director Vladimir Solovyov said.

As the Soyuz rose for nine minutes into its designated orbit Ansari's mascot for the trip, a small toy badger, swung on a string from the capsule ceiling above her. The amateur space traveller gave a smile of wonderment as it then began to float in the conditions of weightlessness.

Ansari, who left Iran at age 16 and is now a US citizen living in Dallas, was preceded in space by three other so-called space tourists, all men.

Paying some 20 million US dollars for the trip, she says she hopes her life and space voyage will inspire young people worldwide, "especially women and girls."

During her eight-day stay, she will conduct scientific experiments for the European Space Agency ESA into the effects of anaemia and backache in zero gravity.

The ISS is currently crewed by three people. While German Thomas Reiter will stay on board until later in the year, Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and American Jeffrey Williams will be busy with cleaning chores during their last hours in orbit, officials said.

The new crew, which is the station's 14th, will have an especially intensive programme.

Four space walks are planned for their stay, during one of which Tyurin will drive a golf ball as part of an advertisement for a Canadian company. The stunt was to have been filmed by the current crew but was postponed amid safety worries.

Three unmanned progress supply ships and at least one US space shuttle are also due to dock at the ISS in the coming months.

To make way for the approaching Soyuz capsule carrying Ansari, the shuttle Atlantis undocked from the station Sunday after completing three spacewalks to install a truss and two solar arrays on the orbital outpost. It is scheduled to land in Florida Wednesday.

The Soyuz will now orbit the planet 22 times as it move into the same flight path as the ISS, which flies around 400 kilometres above the earth. The capsule is due to dock at 0525 GMT Wednesday.

The journey is the culmination of a lifetime of interest in space for Ansari. After selling her Internet company Telecom Technologies in 2001 for 750 million dollars, she was in a position to lend serious clout to efforts to develop private space flight.

She and her family provided sponsorship for the Ansari X Prize, and a ten-million-dollar award for the first non-governmental organization to launch a reusable manned craft into space twice in two weeks. This feat was accomplished by designer Burt Rutan in 2004.