ANKARA, May 23. /TASS/. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said Turkey is starting preparations to send a Turkish citizen to the International Space Station.

"As part of the national space program, Turkey is officially starting the process of sending our citizen to the International Space Station," he said following a cabinet meeting.

This TASS reporter verified that any citizen under the age of 45 who wants to become the first Turkish cosmonaut can apply for the program at uzay.gov.tr. Applications will be accepted until June 23, 2022.

In February last year, the head of the Turkish Space Agency, Serdar Hussein Yildirim, told TASS that Ankara is likely to use the Russian Soyuz spacecraft for its cosmonaut's flight, which is scheduled for 2023.

In 2021, Erdogan announced a national space program that includes training cosmonauts and sending the country’s own rocket to the moon. Ankara intends to spend about $6 billion on this project. Legislation for the effort was prepared in the fall of 2016. This is one of the largest and most ambitious projects in modern Turkish history.

In September 2018, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin announced in an interview with the Anadolu Agency the possibility that Turkey will join Russia and Kazakhstan in using the Baikonur cosmodrome. Rogozin also said Russia was ready to prepare a Turkish crew for a flight to the International Space Station in 2023, when the Republic of Turkey will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its foundation.