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Female space tourist Ansari returns to Earth

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Sept 29, IRNA
Science-Space-Ansari
The world's first paying female space tourist Anousheh Ansari landed safely early Friday in Kazakhstan at the end of a 10-day trip to the International Space Station (ISS).

Suspended from parachutes, a Soyuz TMA-8 capsule carrying the Iranian-born US entrepreneur touched down on schedule at 0113 GMT in the steppe about 90 kilometers northeast of the town of Arkalyk.

"I'm glad to be home safe and sound," Ansari, dazed but smiling, told TV crews after she was lifted from the craft together with Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and US astronaut Jeffrey Williams, who have completed a six-month flight on the space station.

Ansari, 40, is the fourth commercial space traveller and the first woman tourist to visit the ISS, reportedly paying 21.5 million US dollars.

"She did fine," Vinogradov said as the spacefarers sat wrapped in sleeping bags, awaiting the customary post-flight medical examination.

Each was given an apple, and Ansari received a large bouquet of red roses from ground crews before she was joined at the landing site by her husband, Hamid.

Later in the day, the trio were due to fly from the Central Asian republic to the Gagarin cosmonaut training center by Moscow to be reunited with their families.

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