Türkiye's second astronaut set for suborbital mission

ANKARA

Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır has announced that the country's second astronaut, Tuva Cihangir Atasever, will embark on a suborbital research flight on June 8 from a U.S. facility.

Atasever was previously designated as the backup astronaut for the country's first astronaut, Alper Gezeravcı.

"As we agreed in the project agreements from the very beginning, our second astronaut Tuva Cihangir Atasever will experience space by making a suborbital research flight without incurring any additional costs," Kacır told a group of journalists in the capital Ankara on May 7.

Born in August 1992, Atasever graduated from Bilkent University's electrical and electronics engineering department before pursuing his master's degree at the University of California, Irvine. Atasever later gained experience working as an avionics system engineer at Roketsan for five years.

Atasever's upcoming flight follows the two-week space mission of Gezeravcı, which commenced with the launch of the Axiom-3 crew from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 19.