MOSCOW, April 12. /TASS/ Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin and Andrey Fedyaev on Wednesday congratulated their fellow citizens on Cosmonautics Day.

"Dear friends, compatriots, and colleagues! Please accept our greetings on Cosmonautics Day. More than 60 years ago, [Soviet cosmonaut] Yury Gagarin blazed the trail for humankind in space, but we also remember the tens of thousands of people whose selfless efforts, standing behind [Gagarin], helped to make the idea of space flight a reality," Prokopyev said in a video message posted by Russia’s state-run space agency.

Petelin, who is also a TASS special correspondent on board the International Space Station (ISS), expressed his gratitude to everyone in Russia’s rocket and space industry, especially those who he said have been operating the ISS safely on a 24/7 basis.

"Russian cosmonautics is not resting on its laurels," Fedyaev maintained, as he noted the country’s plans to further explore the Moon and planets in the solar system as well as send a new station into orbit and develop equipment for more long-distance space flights.

On April 12, 1961, the Vostok carrier rocket took the Vostok-1 spaceship with Gagarin onboard into orbit. The Soviet cosmonaut was the first human being in space. On April 9,1962, the Soviet Union declared April 12 as Cosmonautics Day.