IRAN: A Russian Soyuz spacecraft blasted off yesterday carrying a woman set to notch up three space records: the first female tourist, first female Muslim, and first Iranian in orbit.
Anousheh Ansari (40), an Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur, joined a Russian cosmonaut and US astronaut in the cramped interior of Soyuz TMA-9 for a flight to the International Space Station.
The Soviet-designed spacecraft lifted off with a roar of its rocket engine into a clear blue sky at 0409 GMT from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. "The launch was successful," mission control chief Vladimir Solovyov told reporters in Moscow.
At an observation post about 1km from the launch site in the Kazakh steppe, Ms Ansari's mother said with tears: "I am happy for her. I know she is very happy and I am praying with all my heart that she is coming back."
Unlike American Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russian Mikhail Tyurin, who are starting a six-month stint in space, Ms Ansari will return to earth in 11 days with the outgoing US-Russian crew.
Ms Ansari, a US citizen based in Dallas, Texas, who left Iran in 1984, has said she wants to be an example to her compatriots.
"I think my flight has become a sort of ray of hope for young Iranians living in Iran, helping them to look forward to something positive, because everything they've been hearing is all so very depressing and talks of war and talks of bloodshed," she said last week.
She was told, however, to remove an Iranian flag from her spacesuit and, at the insistence of the Russian and US governments, to promise there will be no political messages during her trip.
Looking relaxed and smiling at a pre-launch news conference at the Baikonur cosmodrome on Sunday, Ms Ansari said she would still pack another Iranian flag for her trip.
The US and Iran have not had formal diplomatic relations since students took 52 Americans hostage at the US embassy in Tehran in 1979.
President Bush has called the Islamic Republic part of an "axis of evil". Ms Ansari has not said how much her ticket cost. The Russian space programme has in the past charged about €15.8 million ($20 million).
The practice of selling tourists the chance to fly to space - Ms Ansari is the fourth - has caused tension between Moscow and Nasa, but Nasa's International Space Station flight controller, Robert Dempsey, said yesterday he had no great problems with it.
"My personal feeling is I wish it could be me."