Turkey's first astronaut will fly into space tonight
Turkey's first astronaut Alper Gezeravci will fly to the International Space Station on the night of January 18 as part of the third Axiom (Ax-3) commercial mission.
The launch will take place under the auspices of SpaceX at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA.
Gezeravci's flight is the culmination of Turkey's long-standing efforts in space exploration. In particular, Turkey created its own space agency on December 13, 2018 and took the first big step in this regard. On February 9, 2021, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented Turkey's national space program. Launching a Turkish citizen to the ISS was one of the ten goals of the program.
The Gezeravzhi spaceship, which will make its first space flight, will dock with the ISS on January 19 at 1:15 p.m.
For information, in May 2022, the Turkish Space Agency announced the selection of 2 Turkish citizens for the "Turkish space traveler and science mission". 36,000 candidates applied to become the first Turkish cosmonaut. 30 candidates were called to Ankara. In addition to their activities in the fields of engineering, physics, medicine and astronomy, the sports they played were decisive in the selection of candidates. Eligible candidates underwent medical and psychological tests in Ankara.
Gezeravji will perform various scientific tasks on the International Space Station for 14 days. In particular, 13 experiments on cancer, immune cells, algae, propolis and others will be conducted in space.
It is noted that in the future, the Turkish government will continue active efforts to achieve the goals of the National Space Program. As part of it, the second Turkish cosmonaut Tuva Jihangir Atasever will fly to the moon in April.
It is said that Turkey aims to earn up to 1 trillion dollars in future commercial use of space.
Related to the topic
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The launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, which was supposed to carry the Axiom-3 mission to the International Space Station, has been delayed for a day.
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SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon capsule to the International Space Station (ISS) launched at 16:49 local time. It also features Turkey's first astronaut, Alper Gezeravci.
