Moscow, Sep 22 (DPA) Anousheh Ansari, the first female space tourist, settled in comfortably on a nine-day stay at the International Space Station (ISS), occupying improvised sleeping quarters away from the five men on the orbiter, said Russian officials.

To provide her some privacy, the Iranian-born US businesswoman was assigned a separate sleeping space in the station's Pirs docking module, according to the flight control centre here.

Because of the conditions of weightlessness of space, Ansari like other ISS occupants will rest in a sleeping bag that has been tethered to stop it floating around.

Meanwhile, the world's fourth "space tourist" was in good health and using special thigh bands to help her circulation adjust, closely supervised by a doctor on earth.

"We are paying special attention to Ansari because unlike her male colleagues, this is her first time in space," a spokesperson said.

Ansari, who is paying around $20 million for her trip, docked at the ISS Wednesday in a Soyuz space capsule after a two-day flight.

Accompanying her were Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and US astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who will spend six months in orbit as the station's 14th permanent crew.

The digital telecommunications entrepreneur is due to land back on earth in a Soyuz at 0111 GMT Sep 29 with outgoing crewmen Pavel Vinogradov of Russia and US astronaut Jeffrey Williams at the end of their half-year mission.

The third current ISS crewman, ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter, is slated to leave on a US space shuttle in December.

During her stay, Ansari will perform scientific experiments for the European Space Agency (ESA), examining causes of anaemia and back pain that affect astronauts in zero gravity.

She is not the first female occupant of the ISS, but her presence is still expected to have a positive effect on the male crews.

"A woman ensures the men stay in good form," former ISS inhabitant Valery Korzun told the Itar-Tass news agency.

"With a lady around you don't go about unwashed and unshaved as you may do when it is an all-male group," said the Russian cosmonaut who spent six months on the ISS in 2002.