Millionaire Mr Dennis Tito clocked up his first 24 hours as a real-life astronaut yesterday after blasting into orbit and the history books as the first space tourist.
The Soyuz TM-32 carrying the businessman, who paid Russia's space agency $20 million for the space shot, and two cosmonauts was expected to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) today.
However, as attention focused on Mr Tito (60) and his blast-off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, US scientists were working to fix the last remaining computer problem on the ISS.
Software faults developed by three ISS computers had prompted NASA to call for the Soyuz blast-off to be postponed. However, NASA announced on Saturday that two of the computers had been brought back on-line, allowing astronauts at the ISS to use the station's robotic arm.
Mr Tito will spend 10 days in space, sharing quarters with the multinational ISS crew for a week before returning to Earth with Russian crew members, Commander Talgat Musabayev and engineer Yury Baturin, on May 6th.