“Today is the International Day of Human Space Flight marking Yuri Gagarin's 1961 first flight and the first Space Shuttle launch in 1981,” the statement said. “As we honor global collaboration in exploration, we're moving forward to the moon and Mars under the Artemis Accords.”
On April 12, 1961, Gagarin uttered the now famous phrase "Poyekhali!" (Let's Go!) as the Vostok spacecraft lifted off and took the first person in space. The anniversary of the first cosmonaut's flight is celebrated every year in Russia as Cosmonautics Day and as International Day of Human Space Flight in the rest of the world.
The UN General Assembly declared April 12, the day of Gagarin’s space flight, as the International Day of Human Space Flight in 2011.
Tuesday also saw the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos detail that Russia would fast-track the training of a Belarusian cosmonaut candidate ahead of the scheduled space launch in fall of 2023.
"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.