Malaysia’s first Angkasawan, Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, has blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9.22pm Malaysian time last night, and is now in orbit on the way to the International Space Station. He, alongside fellow Expedition 16 crew members, Peggy Whitson (Expedition Commander) and Yuri Malenchenko (Flight Engineer), are now inside a Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft.
They are due to dock at the ISS’s Zarya module at 10.52pm Malaysian time this Friday.
The current members of Expedition 15, have prepared the Zvedza module for Dr Sheikh Muszaphar to conduct experiments over nine days.
Expedition 16 blasts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome – NASA image
I envy the guy. I still remember watching our black and white television of the lunar landing back in 1969, and the subsequent Apollo 12 mission. I took an interest in spaceflights. I remember the final mission to the moon of the Apollo 17. I remember the fiery re-entry of the US Space Station “Skylab” where most of the remnants crashed onto Australian soil near Kalgoorlie and Esperance in Western Australia, 2 days after my 13th birthday in 1979. Then the first space shuttle flight by the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1981.
Now, Sheikh Muszaphar is up there. Some 300km away from Earth. Whatever his role may be up there, let us hope one day in the near future, a Malaysian Angkasawan will actually fly into space in a Malaysian-built vehicle.
Let us hope this is not a one-off thing.
Peggy Whitson (right) and Yuri Malenchenko during the climb to orbit in the Soyuz TMA-11 – NASA Image
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