Korean Astronaut Program
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The Korean Astronaut Program is an initiative by the South Korean government to send the first Korean into space.
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[edit] Program overview
On December 25, 2006, two candidates, one woman and one man, were selected during a ceremony held at SBS television center in Dungchon-dong, Seoul. This choice was the result of a comprehensive selection process which started with the screening of 36,000 applications.[1]
- Ko San (30, male, unmarried, researcher at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology) [2]
- Yi So-yeon (28, female, unmarried, researcher at the KAIST) [3]
This winning pair was sent to Russia early 2007 to undergo a 15-month training course at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow. One of them will travel to the International Space Station in April 2008 aboard Soyuz TMA-12, where he or she will spend about ten days conducting scientific experiments. [4].
On 5 September 2007, Ko San was named as the prime candidate, whilst Yi So-yeon will serve as his backup.[5] However on March 10, 2008 it was announced that the prime candidate has changed to Yi So-yeon due to several violations of training protocol by Ko San. Ko San will serve as backup.[6]
It will cost South Korea approximately 26 billion won (28 million USD) to pay for the training and spaceflight.
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April 8, 2008 Yi So-yeon took off from the Baikonur [7] space centre in Kazakhstan at 11:16 GMT.
[edit] Other finalists
The eight other finalists were:
- Park Ji-young (23, female, master's course student at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) [8]
- Yun Seok-oh (29, male, unmarried, official at Hanyang University) [9]
- Lee Jin-young (36, male, married, squadron leader at Republic of Korea Air Force) [10]
- Jang Joon-sung (25, male, unmarried, lieutenant at Bucheon Nambu Police Station) [11]
- Ryu Jeong-won (33, male, married, chief technology officer at IT Magic Co.) [12]
- Lee Han-gyu (33, male, unmarried, researcher at Samsung SDI) [13]
- Choi Ah-jeong (24, female, unmarried, master's course student at Seoul National University) [14]
- Kim Young-min (33, male, married, researcher at Korea Basic Science Institute) [15]
[edit] Korea Space Center
South Korea will finish the Korea Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla province by 2008.[1] [2]
