US space tourist Garriott (L) and US astronaut Fincke are seen in the capsule of Russian manned spaceship Soyuz TMA-13 in this photo released by NASA, October 14, 2008. [Photo: Xinhuanet/Reuters]

Backgrounder: Basic Facts of Int'l Space Station

The Russian manned spaceship Soyuz, carrying three passengers from Russia and the United States, docked with the International Space Station (ISS) Tuesday.

The cosmonauts opened the hatch and entered the ISS at around 13:55 Moscow time (0955 GMT). They will carry out some 50 experiments, one spacewalk and receive the next NASA space shuttle and a Russian cargo ship.

The Soyuz TMA-13 was launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan Sunday and was designated to send to the ISS Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov, NASA astronaut Michael Fincke and U.S. tourist Richard Garriott.

Garriott, son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott and a computer game developer, will stay in the ISS for 10 days and return to Earth with Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononeko and Sergei Volkov who would by then have completed their mission in the station.

Owen watched the docking from Russian Mission Control outside Moscow, and Volkov was also a second generation cosmonaut who followed his father, a decorated cosmonaut in the Soviet era.

The 18th ISS crew members Lonchakov and Fincke will continue their mission with NASA's Gregory Chamitoff in the ISS.

There have been so far six paid visitors to the ISS since California businessman Dennis Tito became the world's first space tourist in May 2001 at a price of 20 million U.S. dollars, or 1,800 dollars per minute, for an eight-day trip.