KOROLEV, Russia (AFP) - Millionaire space tourist Anousheh Ansari and two astronauts completed their journey from Earth Wednesday when their Soyuz spacecraft safely docked with the International Space Station (ISS).

Ground control at Korolev, outside Moscow, showed live footage of Ansari and the astronauts entering the station and embracing the current occupants of the ISS. Ansari, wearing a black cap and a yellow shirt, smiled as she entered the station.

An Iranian-born U.S. citizen and telecoms tycoon, Ansari is the world's first female space tourist. She accompanied NASA's Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russia's Mikhail Tyurin.

The three blasted off Monday from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Their Soyuz craft docked automatically at 0521 GMT, space flight officials said at the Korolev centre outside Moscow.

"We'll look after her," Tyurin told her relatives on Earth in a video link-up with the crew. Hamid Ansari, her husband, congratulated Ansari, as relatives expressed pride and joy.

"She made history. She's very lucky to have a great crew and she had great training," Hamid Ansari said after the Soyuz vessel completed its journey form Earth. Ansari's sister Atousa Raissyan said her determined sibling's childhood dream of entering space was always bound to come true. "I knew she would do it sooner or later."

Ansari, 40, will spend about eight days aboard the ISS before returning to Earth on September 28 with two of the station's current occupants, Russia's Pavel Vinogradov and American Jeffrey Williams.

Ansari is thought to have paid about 25 million dollars (20 million euros) for the flight, which she has said is the realization of her childhood dreams of space.

Born in 1966 in Iran, Ansari left the country for the United States with her parents at the age of 16 shortly after the Islamic revolution and launched herself into the study of electronics and data processing.

She made millions in telecoms and her family has gone on to invest in technology and space exploration, contributing 10 million dollars to the X Foundation, set up to encourage advances in human space flight.

"She is a very determined, resolute woman," Eric Anderson, chairman of Space Adventures, the company behind her flight to the ISS, said earlier in a telephone interview with AFP. Before setting off for space, Ansari said: "I hope that not only my flights, but the life I have lived so far, become an inspiration for all youth all over the world, especially women and girls around the world to pursue their dreams."