On the flight to the space station in April, he will be replaced by Yi Sun-Yeon, a 29-year-old engineer
The change came against the background of demands from the Russian side, following violations of regulations on the part of Ko San. In the meantime, Ko Sun will continue to train at the Russian Cosmonaut Training Center, where the two Korean candidates have been training since the beginning of 2007, but it is the second candidate who will become the first Korean cosmonaut.
This decision was made following "violations of the Cosmonaut Code of Conduct" as defined in the publications of the Russian Space Agency. According to an official announcement from Korea, it is about two times in which Ko-san violated regulations that he had signed. Last September, he sent to South Korea, along with his personal belongings, a book on preparing for a flight, which he took without permission, and in February of this year, through one of his Russian colleagues, he received instructions for controlling the spacecraft, which he had no right to see.
This is an important announcement, as it is about the first astronaut of South Korea, which will be the 35th country in the world whose citizen will become a cosmonaut. Apparently, now the first female cosmonaut will be Ee-Su-Yeon, (29), who has a PhD fromKAIST (ret. of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), and is employed by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute.
Link to more details About the Korean cosmonauts - on the official website of the Korean Space Agency (English)
The Russian Space Agency said yesterday that both candidates received the same preparation, and that they are not opposed to the exchange. It was also reported that the time remaining until the launch is sufficient to complete the replacement of the main candidate (for the flight) with a backup candidate without causing differences in the expected mission.
Since 1992, 10 South Korean satellites have been launched by various launchers in the world, and a number of scientific and technological experiments have been carried out with rockets and launchers made in South Korea (מקור). In 2004, cooperation between South Korea and Russia in the field of space began. With the help of scientific and technological assistance Russia's position was built in Korea space center, and in 2005 an agreement was signed to launch a Korean cosmonaut to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz spacecraft.
The launch of the Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled to take place in early April. In addition to the Korean cosmonaut, 2 cosmonauts from Russia will also be launched - mission commander Sergei Volkov and flight engineer Oleg Kononenko, who together with the American astronaut launched today (Tuesday), will make up the 17th crew on the ISS.
the news inSpace.com (The above picture is taken from there).
The message of Russian space agency.
