Posted: Thu, Jul 28, 2005, 9:53 AM ET (1353 GMT)
The Russian space agency Roskosmos has officially added American businessman Gregory Olsen to the crew of the next Soyuz flight scheduled to fly to the station in early October. Olsen will join the next ISS crew, William McArthur and Valery Tokarev, on the Soyuz TMA-7 spacecraft scheduled for launch October 1. Olsen will spend about a week on the station before returning to Earth with the current ISS crew, Sergei Krikalev and John Phillips. Olsen had signed a contract with Roskosmos earlier this month, but was not officially named to the crew of the October flight until now. Olsen, who plans to use the flight to conduct a number of experiments, will be the third commercial passenger to visit the station, after Dennis Tito in 2001 and Mark Shuttleworth in 2002.

Related Links:

•  AP article
•  AFP article
•  Space Adventures press release