Nine minutes after launch, the Soyuz TM-30 spacecraft carrying Russian cosmonauts Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Kaleri was safely in orbit, on target to dock with Mir 0633 GMT Thursday, flight control said.

Tuesday's launch marked the first time private sector money has financed a manned flight to Mir, a milestone that has gone down badly with Moscow's partners in the International Space Station (ISS).

That massive station's multi-billion dollar construction has already been delayed because of Moscow's financial worries.

Mir's Russian operator Energiya has set up the MirCorp to manage the 14-year-old space station's 60-million-dollar annual budget. The Amsterdam-based consortium includes US venture capital outfit Gold and Appel, who found the funds for Tuesday's flight.

The task of Zalyotin and Kaleri is to plug the holes in Mir through which air is slowly leaking and pump in fresh oxygen supplies being carried by the Soyuz craft.

The money men meanwhile will continue to hunt out commercial projects which could extend the career of the mothballed Soviet-built station, which was to have made a fiery re-entrance into the Earth's atmosphere this summer.

The Russian team's mission has been extended from 45 days to 60, but could last up to 90 days if the firm that manages Mir, Energiya, can raise additional funds.

"This flight is very important for us," Energiya chief Yury Semyonov told the crew shortly before lift-off. "You are giving a second lease of life to the space station," he said.

Energiya deputy chairman Nikolai Zelenshchikov said the current mission would enhance rather than hurt the ambitious ISS project grouping Canada, Japan, Russia, the United States, and the 11 members of the European Space Agency.

"A study of systems on Mir after 14 years in orbit will allow us to better ensure the success of the International Space Station," he told AFP.

Mir would still be able to stay in orbit if the cosmonauts fail to find the leak since it is regularly resupplied with oxygen, he added.

The pride of the Soviet space programme launched in 1986, Zelenshchikov said it was still "capable of functioning for two or three more years."

Speaking before lift-off, flight engineer Kaleri said: "Once onboard Mir, we will be able to depressurise it and carry out repair work, because the station has been uninhabited for a long time.

"We are also going to conduct a number of scientific experiments and a space walk," he added.

"One of the experiments consists of perfecting a technique of reducing the onboard temperature, which is currently 28 degrees Celsius (82.4 degrees Fahrenheit)," said Zalyotin.

However, a lack of cash had forced the cancellation of a number of scientific experiments, he added. MirCorp chief Jeffrey Manber said the firm needs to find 40 million dollars to keep Mir in orbit to year's end.

Projects to date have included shooting a movie in space, although contractual haggling spiked a US-Russian bid to shoot "The Last Voyage" aboard Mir for 206 million dollars.

Manber also hopes to bring corporate sponsorship, the Internet and even tourism into the space age. "Space tourism" comes with a hefty 20-40 million dollar price tag.

The reconversion is a remarkable development in Mir's chequered career, marked by a string of incidents in 1997 including an onboard fire and a near-fatal collision with a cargo craft.

Its main computer shut down at least four times, leaving its occupants spinning through space in total darkness.

But it was also on Mir that the majority of space flight records were set, including the space endurance record of 437 days set by Valery Polyakov in 1994-1995.

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