The first Canadian to pay his way into space has docked at the International Space Station.
Guy Laliberte, the Quebec-born billionaire and founder of Cirque du Soleil, arrived at the space station on Friday, two days after he blasted off from Kazakhstan.
The 50-year-old Laliberte travelled with American astronaut Jeffrey Williams and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev inside a Soyuz TMA-16 space capsule.
In Russia, Laliberte's five children and his partner, Claudia Barilla, applauded his journey as they watched the capsule dock at the space station.
"I'm very excited," Barilla said, holding the couple's two-year-old daughter, while they watched from Russian Mission Control, located outside of Moscow.
Steve MacLean, the president of the Canadian Space Agency, said the docking was uneventful and smoothly executed.
"For the Russians, it's an uneventful docking and it's very exciting to see it all work well," he told Â鶹´«Ã½ Channel during a phone interview from Montreal on Friday morning.
Laliberte will return to Earth on Oct. 11 along with two other space station crew members who are waiting to return home.
The seventh-ever space tourist intends to use his trip to space to draw attention to the issue of access to clean water on Earth. But his message came at a cost, as Laliberte reportedly paid US$35 million to take a trip to space.
MacLean said that Laliberte is officially classified as a "space flight participant," but the CSA president considers the Quebec billionaire to be a "private space explorer."
Williams, who has travelled to space on two previous occasions, and first-time traveler Surayev will remain at the space station for the next few months.
Back on Earth, Surayev's wife, Anna, said she and the couple's two daughters were "really proud" of the cosmonaut's first trip to space.
"Glad his dream came true, because it took him 12 years to achieve it."
With files from The Associated Press
