"We have signed a preliminary contract with (Anoushe) Ansari under which she is training as a back-up for Japanese space tourist Daisuke Enomoto," Alexei Krasnov, in charge of manned space flights, was quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency as saying.

"It's not excluded that she will herself leave for the ISS in spring 2007," Krasnov said.

Ansari, the 38-year-old head of Telecom Technologies in the United States, left Iran when she was 17.

Ansari and Enomoto on Friday toured the Soyuz spacecraft that will take the 34-year-old Japanese Internet entrepreneur to space in September, ITAR-TASS reported.

Enomoto will pay some 20 million dollars (15.7 million euros) to be the fourth space tourist to blast off for the International Space Station.

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