Hangul 한국우주인배출사업 | Hanja 韓國宇宙人輩出事業 | |
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Revised Romanization Hanguk ujuin baechul saeop McCune–Reischauer Hankuk uchuin paech'ul saŏp | ||
The Korean Astronaut Program was an initiative by the South Korean government to send the first Korean into space via the Russian space program.
Contents
First astronaut class
On December 25, 2006, two candidates, one woman and one man, were selected by South Korea 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.
Other finalists
The eight other finalists were:
First space mission
The winning pair was sent to Russia early 2007 to undergo a 15-month training course at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow.
On September 5, 2007, Ko San was named as the prime candidate, whilst Yi So-yeon served as his backup. However, on March 10, 2008 it was announced that the prime candidate was changed to Yi So-yeon due to several violations of training protocol by Ko San. Ko San served as backup.
On April 8, 2008 Yi So-yeon took off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan at 11:16 GMT aboard Soyuz TMA-12. She spent ten days conducting scientific experiments aboard the International Space Station.
It cost South Korea approximately 26 billion won (28 million USD) to pay for the training and spaceflight.
Post-first mission
In 2014, Yi So-yeon resigned from the program, to pursue an MBA, which was incompatible with continuing as an astronaut.