MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th December, 2019) Russian space corporation Roscosmos and a Hungarian delegation discussed on Friday the prospects of sending a Hungarian astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) on a Soyuz rocket, the state corporation said in a statement.
"During the meeting, the parties noted the historical value of Russian-Hungarian cooperation in the field of peaceful exploration and use of outer space, and discussed existing and promising bilateral cooperation projects ... The parties agreed to continue the discussion of space projects and discussed the possibility of organizing the next meeting in Russia in January 2020," the statement read.
Chief of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto, and Hungarian ambassador to Russia Norbert Konkoly took part in the talks, in which the possibility of conducting joint experiments on the ISS was also a topic of discussion.
Earlier in November, a Hungarian delegate to the European Space Agency's ministerial meeting had said that the country was engaged in talks with Roscosmos on the possibility of sending its astronaut to the International Space Station by 2024. The Soyuz rockets operated by Roscosmos are, at the moment, the only means to transport astronauts to the ISS.
The first Hungarian astronaut, Bertalan Farkas, was launched into space on Soyuz 36 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in 1980.
