World’s first female private space explorer reaches orbital destination
Vienna, Va. – September 20, 2006 — Space Adventures, Ltd., the world’s leading space experiences company, announced today that Anousheh Ansari successfully arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) after launching onboard a Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Sept. 18.
The spacecraft docked to the ISS at 1:21 a.m. (EDT) with Mrs. Ansari and Expedition 14 commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin aboard. They were greeted at 4:34 a.m. (EDT) by NASA astronaut Jeff Williams, Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter when the hatch was opened.
After Mrs. Ansari’s eight-day stay aboard the space station, she will return to Earth on Sept. 28 with the Expedition 13 crew members Williams and Vinogradov.
Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures, the company which organized the spaceflights for the world’s first and only private space explorers: Dennis Tito, ‘First African in Space’ Mark Shuttleworth and Gregory Olsen, Ph.D., said, “Anousheh is enjoying her spaceflight and looks forward to the time she will spend aboard the space station. Since the time of her launch, Space Adventures has been overwhelmed with inquiries from around the world with interest in future orbital flights. We plan to send many more individuals to space in our continued effort in opening the final frontier.”
In preparation for her spaceflight with Space Adventures, Mrs. Ansari completed a cosmonaut training program at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center located in Star City, Russia. For more detailed information on the elements of her training and for updates on her mission, please visit http://www.spaceadventures.com/anousheh-ansari/updates.
Space Adventures, the only company to have successfully launched private explorers to space, is headquartered in Vienna, Va. with offices in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Moscow and Tokyo. It offers a variety of programs such as the availability today for spaceflight missions to the International Space Station and around the moon, Zero-Gravity and jet flights, cosmonaut training, spaceflight qualification programs and reservations on future suborbital spacecrafts. The company’s advisory board includes Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, Shuttle astronauts Sam Durrance, Robert Gibson, Tom Jones, Byron Lichtenberg, Norm Thagard, Kathy Thornton, Pierre Thuot, Charles Walker, Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev. For more information, please visit www.spaceadventures.com.
Erin Lundberg
Space Adventures, Ltd.
8000 Towers Crescent Drive, Ste. 1000
Vienna, Va. 22182
+1 703 524-7172 x546
Fax +1 703 524-7176
elundberg@spaceadventures.com
www.spaceadventures.com
