Sunday, August 5, 2007
The Angkasawan program is an initiative by the Malaysian government to send a Malaysian to the International Space Station on board Soyuz TMA-11. Angkasawan is the Malay word for 'astronaut'.
This program was officially announced by the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun. Dr. Mahathir Mohhamad as a joint programme with the Russian Federation. It is a project under the government-to-government offset agreement through the purchase of deal of the Sukhoi SU-30MKM fighter jets for the Royal Malaysian Air Force.
Under this agreement the Russian Federation will bear the cost of training of two Malaysian Angkasawan (astronaut) candidates, and later to send one to the International Space Station (ISS). The first Malaysian Angkasawan is expected to be send to the ISS in October 2007.
National Space Agency (ANGKASA), Ministry of Science, Technologies and Innovations have been given the responsibility of commissioning the process of selecting the national astronaut, where 2 out of 4 finalist had been chosen and are undergoing the Astronaut Training Programme in Star City, Russia for 18 months.
Source : Wikipedia
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