BAIKONUR, Oct 1: A Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan early on Saturday, taking American ‘space tourist’ Greg Olsen and his fellow astronauts, a Russian and another American, off towards the International Space Station.

The rocket climbed faultlessly away from the Kazakh steppes carrying the Soyuz TMA-7 capsule and its fee-paying and professional crew.

Ten minutes later the capsule was placed in orbit, to the applause of the hundreds of people, including Olsen’s family, crowded into an observation post within sight of the launching pad.

On Friday, 59-year-old grandfather Olsen confessed to a few pre-launch nerves ahead of his 20 million-dollar trip, the fulfilment of months of tough preparation.

“I’ll be most relaxed and happy after the rocket takes off,” said Olsen, speaking at the Baikonur space centre ahead of his launch.

Olsen was accompanied by Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev and US astronaut William McArthur on the trip to the ISS, where they will arrive on Monday, after a period in orbit adjusting to conditions of weightlessness.

Two other “space tourists” have preceded Olsen in what is becoming a profitable sideline for the Russian space programme: American Dennis Tito in 2001 and South African Mark Shuttleworth in 2002.—AFP