The first female space tourist, 40-year-old Anousheh Ansari, has successfully made it to the International Space Station.
The Russian Soyuz craft carrying Ansari and two professional astronauts successfully docked with the ISS on Wednesday at 0521 GMT. The Soyuz, which blasted off Monday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, docked autonomously.
Ansari, an Iranian-born US citizen, accompanied NASA鈥檚 Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin. All three are due to enter the space station later on Wednesday.
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Televised images from the ISS showed the new arrivals embracing the station鈥檚 current occupants, while Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin assured Ansari鈥檚 relatives on Earth: 鈥淲e鈥檒l look after her鈥�.
Childhood dream
Ansari鈥檚 family expressed pride and joy as they watched the live footage on a screen at Korolev, Moscow, showing the Soyuz vessel completing its journey from Earth to the ISS.
鈥淪he made history. She鈥檚 very lucky to have a great crew and she had great training,鈥� said her husband, Hamid Ansari.
Ansari鈥檚 sister Atousa Raissyan said her determined sibling鈥檚 childhood dream of entering space was always bound to come true. 鈥淚 knew she would do it sooner or later.鈥�
She will spend eight days aboard the ISS before returning to Earth on September 28 with two of the station鈥檚 current occupants, Russia鈥檚 Pavel Vinogradov and America鈥檚 Jeffrey Williams.
Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin will then crew the ISS along with Germany鈥檚 Thomas Reiter, who has been in space since early July 2006.
