Indonesia Negotiating Launch of 1st Indigenous Astronaut with Russia's Roscosmos

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Indonesia is in talks with Russia's State Space Corporation Roscosmos on sending its first domestic astronaut to space, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said.
Sputnik
"We have started negotiations with countries such as Turkey, Indonesia, Hungary as they want to launch their own cosmonaut. They want to cooperate with Roscosmos", Rogozin said in an interview with the Rossiya 24 television.

Earlier reports indicated that Russia could send Turkish and Hungarian astronauts into space.

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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.

Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin held a meeting in October with Turkish Ambassador to Russia to discuss the prospects of Russia-Turkey bilateral cooperation in space exploration. Rogozin stated that Russia is ready to train and launch a Turkish astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) by 2023.

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