WARSAW, Aug 29 The Polish Space Agency and the European Space Agency (ESA) have signed an agreement on the flight of a Polish cosmonaut into space, Minister of Development and Technology of the Republic Waldemar Buda told reporters .
“Poland is increasing its activity in space. We would like to be leaders or participants in what is happening in space. Three agreements have been signed today. Firstly, on the flight of our cosmonaut, a Pole,” Buda said.
He clarified that the candidacy of the Polish cosmonaut has already been determined, this is ESA reserve astronaut Slavos Uznansky. «As for the personality, everything is still ahead. We have a candidate, but he must be tested, he must be approved. Here we do not want to jinx it yet,» the minister said.
“The flight is expected in the second half of 2024. Now we are very painstakingly preparing for the adaptation of our candidate, of course, after his preliminary approval. We are counting on a positive decision on this issue. Let's remember that today he is already a reserve astronaut in ESA, he already there is a level of qualification, he has already participated in this race. Slavosh (Uznansky) is our iron candidate,» Buda assured.
He added that two other agreements with ESA dealt with internships for Polish university graduates at the space agency.
Until now, the first and only Polish cosmonaut is Miroslav Germashevsky, who went into space on June 27, 1978 on the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft -thirty». He spent 7 days, 22 hours, 2 minutes and 59 seconds outside the Earth's atmosphere, becoming the 89th person to travel into space.
Germashevsky died at the end of last year at the age of 81.