Turkey’s first astronaut lifts off to International Space Station

Turkey made history on Thursday, January 18, as the SpaceX Axiom mission successfully launched to the International Space Station (ISS) with country’s first astronaut on board.

A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule lifted off on a Falcon 9 rocket at 4.49 pm local time (21:49



GMT/UTC) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States (US).

On board the rocket were former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria from Spain, Italy’s Walter Villadei, Sweden’s Marcus Wandt and Turkey’s Alper Gezeravci.