This is an update to a story first posted at 4 a.m.
MOSCOW -- A Soyuz spacecraft docked with the International Space Station this morning, delivering a fresh lifeboat for the Expedition Two crew while bringing space tourist Dennis Tito along for the ride.
"I love space," Tito said an hour after the docking as he and his cosmonaut colleagues -- commander Talgat Musabayev and flight engineer Yuri Butarin -- floated aboard the Russian Zarya module. "It was a great trip here."
Although moving a litte more slowly and stiffly than his veteran counterparts, Tito said he was feeling fine and was not having much trouble adapting to the free-falling sensation of microgravity.
"I don't know about this adaptation that they talk about. I'm already adapted," said the California tycoon, who paid Russia as much as $20 million to make the trip despite protests from NASA and the other international station partners.
RSC Energia director Yuri Semyonov at Mission Control said that Tito on Sunday "wasn't feeling himself" but after taking some medicine he felt better.
About half of all first-time space fliers suffer a form of motion sickness that usually disappears in two or three days.
And according to cosmonauts present at the control center, Tito will only get better as he logs more time in space."Looking at Tito overall he is doing quite all right, considering that the International Space Station is bigger than the Soyuz spacecraft. So he certainly needs some time to adapt himself both to weightlessness and moving in weightlessness," said Victor Afanasiev, Musabayev's back up commander.
Flying on autopilot, the Soyuz TM-32 eased up to space station Alpha and connected to a port on the frontier outpost's Zarya module at 3:58 a.m. EDT, less than 15 hours after shuttle Endeavour undocked from a nearby port at the end of the Destiny science module.
A couple of minor problems with an infrared sensor and the automatic docking system cropped up but did not interfere with the docking.
"OK, guys, we can congratulate you with your wonderful job. Now you can be happy," a flight controller told the Soyuz crew after the docking.
"Thank you very much for your support," replied Musabayev.
After leak checks and a momentary problem opening the hatch between the Soyuz spacecraft and the station, the three taxi crew members were able to float into Alpha, where they were greeted first by Expedition Two commander Yuri Usachev.
"We're so glad they're finally here so we have guests in our house. They're in good shape and we're really hopeful that our cooperation will be fruitful," Usachev said.
Despite the sour feelings NASA has expressed about Tito's presence on this flight, the U.S. station crewmembers -- which includes flight engineers Susan Helms and Jim Voss -- promised to extend every hospitality to their visitors.
"We will welcome aboard anyone who is providing a service to us," Helms has repeatedly said during the past few months and proved it on Monday, greeting Tito and his crewmates with smiles.
The service: Delivering a Soyuz spacecraft that would be used as a lifeboat for the three-member crew if a serious problem suddenly developed and the expedition was forced to abandon ship.
This new Soyuz replaces an identical lifeboat currently docked to the end of the Zvezda service module. The older Soyuz carried the Expedition One crew to the station and has been at the station since November 2, 2000.
During the next five days the six crewmembers onboard will transfer equipment from the new Soyuz to the outpost as well as the old Soyuz. It'll undock on Saturday and land two days later.
Russian flight rules call for Soyuz lifeboats to be replaced every six months because the rocket propellant stored inside the ships degrades over time, so a new Soyuz must be sent up twice a year.
The taxi crew lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early Saturday to begin a standard two-day chase of Alpha.
Problems with the station's computers this week threatened to delay the docking until Tuesday, but a green light from NASA's Mission Control in Houston late Saturday cleared the way for Russian controllers to continue maneuvering the Soyuz capsule into position to join with the station this morning.
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