The Soyuz TM-30 spacecraft carrying Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Kaleri on the first privately-financed mission to the 14-year-old orbiter, docked at 0531 GMT.

It was not clear when the cosmonauts would enter the space station, which is leaking air and has been uninhabited since August.

Mir had been due to come down to Earth this summer because Russia's cash-strapped space programme was unable to fund both Mir and its share of work on the multi-billion dollar International Space Station.

Construction of the massive project has already been delayed because of Moscow's financial problems.

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.

Energiya has set up the MirCorp consortium with the US venture capital outfit Gold and Appel, who found the 20 million dollars which paid for the current 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 back on Earth meanwhile will continue to hunt out commercial projects which could extend the career of the mothballed space station.

The pride of the Soviet space programme when launched in 1986, Mir's Russian operator says it is still capable of functioning for two or three more years.

The astronauts are due to conduct a space walk and a number of scientific experiments. However, a lack of cash has forced the cancellation of a number of these.

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 per person.

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.

Copyright 1999 AFP. All rights reserved. The material on this page is provided by AFP and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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