US space tourist Richard Garriott will follow in the footsteps of his astronaut father when he blasts off into space on Sunday.
Mr Garriott has paid about $30m (Ј15m) for his 10-day trip to the International Space Station (ISS).
The Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft, mounted on a three-stage rocket, is due to launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, at 0701 GMT (0801 BST; 0301 EDT).
Richard's father, Owen Garriott, spent 60 days on a US space station in 1973.
He took extensive photographs of the Earth's surface during his stay on the Skylab orbital outpost in 1973.
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Richard Garriott, a 47-year-old computer game designer, will be joined on the flight by US astronaut Mike Fincke, who becomes the space station's commander, and Russian flight engineer Yuri Lonchakov.
Experimental tasks
The professional astronauts will supervise the start-up of new life support equipment for the ISS. This should enable the full-time occupancy of the orbiting outpost to be increased from three to six crew members in May. Richard Garriott is a board member and investor in Space Adventures, the US company that has brokered flights aboard Russian craft for five other millionaires, including the first paying space tourist, California businessman Dennis Tito, in 2001.
He plans to carry out experiments during his voyage, including one involving protein crystal growth, on behalf of companies that he says have footed a "meaningful percentage" of the ticket price.
Mr Garriott has also said he would take photos to record how the Earth's surface has changed in the 35 years since his father's voyage.
Mr Fincke and Mr Lonchakov will replace the station's current crew - commander Sergei Volkov and flight engineer Oleg Kononenko - who are due to return home with Mr Garriott on 23 October after six months in space.
By coincidence, Volkov became the world's first second-generation space traveller in April. His father is the cosmonaut Alexander Volkov, a veteran of long-duration spaceflights to the Russian Salyut 7 and Mir orbiting stations.
The cosmonauts have been investigating the cause of two recent off-target landings by Soyuz craft, believed to have been the result of faulty explosive bolts on the vehicles.
(BBC)
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