A Russian spaceship with a three-men crew blasted off Saturday morning from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, launching the world's third space tourist Gregory Olsen and two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

Olsen rode aloft aboard the Soyuz TMA-7 ship, which lifted off at 0755 Moscow time (0355 GMT), along with the 12th crew for the ISS -- Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev and NASA astronaut William McArthur.

The Mission Control outside Moscow said all systems worked fine during liftoff and the ship entered the orbit at 8:03 a.m. Moscow time (0403 GMT). The crew reported all was going well onboard. The Soyuz is scheduled to hook up with the space station two days later.

Olsen's family members and friends watched from a viewing platform at Baikonur as the Soyuz carrying the US millionaire scientist climbed faultlessly away from Kazakhstan, trailing blindingly bright yellow and pink flames.

Also at Baikonur were NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and his Russian counterpart Anatoly Perminov.

With the help of the crew, Olsen, 60, will perform some 10 scientific experiments on the station, including crystal growth experiments in conditions of weightlessness, studies of the response of the human body in weightlessness, and measure of air humidity on Earth surface through spectrum.

Olsen, holder of advanced degrees in physics and materials science, rejected the "space tourist" label on him, preferring to see himself as a private science researcher.

"Tourist doesn't do justice to all the work I've put in, or the work that the people at the Gagarin center (outside Moscow) put in preparing us," Olsen said at a pre-flight news conference on Friday.

Olsen is preceded by American Dennis Tito and South African Mark Shuttleworth, who had spent a few days on the ISS in 2001 and 2002 respectively after paying 20 million US dollars apiece for the tour. Olsen is reported to have paid the same price for his space travel.

After a 10-day tour in space, Olsen will return to Earth with Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and US astronaut John Phillips, who have been working on the station since mid-April, in a Soyuz ship that will touch down on Oct. 11 in Kazakhstan's northern steppes.

Russia's space program has been the ISS' lifeline for more than two years since the suspension of US shuttle flights after the Columbia shuttle disintegrated on Feb. 1, 2003, as it returned to Earth. All seven astronauts aboard Columbia perished.

The US shuttle Discovery briefly visited the orbiting lab in July but concerns over the foam insulation on the shuttle's external fuel tank prompted NASA to keep the shuttle fleet grounded.

Source: Xinhua