Iranian-born space tourist blasts off into orbit

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan, Sep 18 (Reuters) A Russian Soyuz spacecraft blasted off today 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 (ISS).

The Soviet-designed spacecraft lifted off into a clear blue sky at 0939 IST from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

''The flight is normal, the crew feel fine,'' a flight controller at Mission Control near Moscow said.

Unlike American Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russian Mikhail Tyurin, who are starting a six-month stint in space, Ansari will return to earth in 10 days with the outgoing US-Russian crew.

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,'' Ansari told Reuters last week.

FLAG She has been told, however, to remove an Iranian flag from her spacesuit and, at the insistence of the Russian and US governments, promise that 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, Ansari said she would still pack another Iranian flag for her trip.

The United States and Iran have not had formal diplomatic relations since students took 52 Americans hostage at the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. US President George W Bush has called the Islamic Republic part of an ''axis of evil''.

Ansari has not said how much her ticket cost but previous space tourists have paid the Russian space programme about 20 million dollars.

She had originally been scheduled to join a later Soyuz mission but took the place of Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto when Russian space officials said last month he was not able to fly for unspecified medical reasons.

Several hours before the Soyuz blast off, the US space Shuttle Atlantis undocked from the ISS.

The Soyuz craft will dock with the space station early on Wednesday. Atlantis is scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida a few hours later.

Reuters PB VP1205