MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th April, 2022) Russia plans to fast-track the training of a Belarusian cosmonaut candidate ahead of the scheduled space launch in fall of 2023, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos said on Tuesday.
"We will try to speed up the training so that a Belarusian cosmonaut could go on their first mission in fall of 2023," Dmitry Rogozin told a news conference.
He said the launch would be a show of Russian-Belarusian unity in space exploration. Several ethnic Belarusians have flown to space while on Russian service.
Rogozin spoke at an event marking the 61st anniversary of human spaceflight. Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to go to space on April 12, 1961.
