Image from AFP
Check out some of the news about Malaysia’s first astronaut Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor who trained for a year and was selected from thousands in a local competition.
Malaysians over the moon at their first astronaut (AFP)
Malaysia celebrated Thursday as its first astronaut hurtled through space on board a Russian Soyuz rocket, in a landmark for the nation which is marking 50 years of independence. “It’s a small step for me, but a great leap for the Malaysian people,” said Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, the 35-year-old doctor and part-time model who blasted off late Wednesday from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.
Russian rocket launches first Malaysian into space (Reuters UK)
Thousands of Malaysians watched the blast-off live on television as the TMA-11 rocket carrying Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, an orthopaedic surgeon and university lecturer from Kuala Lumpur, lifted off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe. Russian officials said the rocket lifted off on schedule, at 05:22 p.m. Moscow time (2:22 p.m. British time) and successfully went into orbit, circling the earth every 88.7 minutes.
