(September 18, 2006)--A Russian-built spacecraft carrying the world's first female space tourist is on its way to the international space station.

A US-Russian crew accompanies Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari of Plano on the Soyuz capsule.

Ansari paid a reported $20 million to become the fourth private astronaut and the first female tourist to take a trip on a Russian spacecraft and visit the station.

The Iran-born Ansari is a co-founder of the Richardson-based company, Telecom Technologies.

She took the place of Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto who failed a medical test.

Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and American astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria will join German astronaut Thomas Reiter on the station in a couple of days.

Ansari is due to return to Earth on Sept. 29, along with cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and astronaut Jeffrey Williams.

They've been on the station since April.

The Soyuz rocket that carried Expedition 14 into space lifted off Sunday night from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The shuttle Atlantis undocked from the Space Station Sunday morning and is scheduled to return to the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday.

Click Here For Anousheh Ansari’s Web Site

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