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Gezeravci's mission will increase our youth's space curiosity —Erdogan

President Erdogan engages in a video call with space traveller Alper Gezeravci, stating that the mission of the country's first astronaut heralds a new era for Turkish space exploration.

AA

The four-person team will conduct more than 30 scientific researches during their 14-day stay, with Gezeravci responsible for 13 researches. / Photo: AA

Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that the mission of the country’s first astronaut, Alper Gezeravci, marked the beginning of a new era for Turkish space exploration.

During a video call with Gezeravci on Monday, Erdogan said with this critical mission within the scope of Türkiye's National Space Program, he has become an inspiration to everyone in the country, particularly children and young people.

The Ax-3 mission, which included Gezeravci, launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 2149 GMT on Thursday (4:49 pm ET) on a Falcon 9 rocket owned by private space exploration company SpaceX.

The crew-carrier Dragon capsule docked at 1042 GMT (5:42 am EST), and the crew entered the International Space Station (ISS) at 1216 GMT (7:16 am EST).

The four-person team will conduct more than 30 scientific researches during their 14-day stay, with Gezeravci responsible for 13 researches.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Colonel Alper Gezeravci, the country’s first-ever astronaut, to receive the latest updates from his current space mission at the International Space Station pic.twitter.com/IQxaTfjLUB
— TRT World (@trtworld) January 22, 2024

Gezeravci said in the video call, "As we step into the Century of Türkiye, I am proud to represent my country in this meaningful mission and to carry our flag to the International Space Station."

Giving details about experiments that he will conduct on the ISS, he added "I completed my first task by transferring our experimental set-ups from the Dragon capsule to their pre-experiment storage field."

Erdogan said Gezeravci is the first Turkish astronaut but he is not last, adding, "Türkiye has taken its place among the countries carrying out crewed space missions."

Scientific research on ISS

The first Turkish space traveller, Alper Gezeravci, began to conduct scientific research on the International Space Station, the Turkish Space Agency (TUA) announced.

The TUA said the first experiment, named Extremophyte, was developed by Ege University in the Aegean city of Izmir.

The experiment aims to reveal the transcriptome by next generation sequencing in plants grown in space and on earth which are exposed to salt stress, and to compare some physiological and molecular responses of glycophytic and halophytic plants to salt stress in microgravity.