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Russia's space agency in talks on sending Turkish, Egyptian, Saudi astronauts into space

This autumn, the United Arab Emirates successfully sent its first ever astronaut into space, according to Roscosmos chief

NUR-SULTAN, November 12. /TASS/. Roscosmos is in talks with Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia hashing over the possibility of sending their astronauts into space, Dmitry Rogozin, director of Russia’s state space corporation, told an international forum dubbed "Baikonur is the cradle of world cosmonautics" on Tuesday.

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"Earlier, it was believed that with the advent of American spacecraft, there would be no need for Soyuz spacecraft anymore, but this turned out to be exactly the opposite. And now we see that the Energia corporation, Roscosmos and our Kazakh colleagues have received new requests and seen a new interest from countries seeking to get their first experience on a spaceflight from Baikonur," Rogozin said.

This autumn, the United Arab Emirates successfully sent its first ever astronaut into space, Rogozin recalled. Hazza Al Mansouri arrived at the International Space Station as part of the crew aboard the Soyuz MS-15 spaceflight launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on September 25. On October 3, he returned back to Earth.

"At the moment, we are in talks with other potential participants on this project. These are Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and many other countries. I’m sure that Baikonur will become a home sweet home for preparing nestlings from these countries, who will be raised to ensure their first spaceflight," he explained.

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