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First Korean astronaut prepares to fly into space

Preparations for the launch of a Russian rocket due to take South Korea's first astronaut into space entered their final stage on Friday as technicians assembled the spaceship.

  • Reuters
  • Published: 00:31 April 6, 2008
  • Gulf News

Baikonur, Kazakhstan: Preparations for the launch of a Russian rocket due to take South Korea's first astronaut into space entered their final stage on Friday as technicians assembled the spaceship.

'Everything is going according to plan, everything is fine," said Oleg Urusov, a spokesman for Russia's Federal Space Centre.

"The rocket is due to be moved to the launch pad on Sunday morning."

The Soviet-designed Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft will blast off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome on the Kazakh steppe on Tuesday at 17:16pm (1116GMT).

The rocket, originally designed during the Cold War as a ballistic missile, will carry South Korean nanotechnology engineer Yi So-yeon and Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko.

Technicians were putting together different modules of the spacecraft yesterday in a large hangar. It is due to dock with the International Space Station on Thursday.

A railroad carriage stood nearby, ready to take the assembled rocket to the launch pad in the middle of the Kazakh steppe after a thorough inspection.

The crew, due to take off from "Gagarin's Start" from which the first man flew into space in April 1961, received landing instructions from Russian rescue and recovery officers on the same day.

South Korea's Government has paid Russia $25 million (Dh92 million) for the right to send a Korean into space. Yi, 29, is due to return to Earth on April 19. She looked calm as she took notes at a training session on landing procedures.

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