Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, Malaysian’s first astronaut and an American Peggy Whitson, who will become the first woman to command the International Space Station and a Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko was raised into launch position Monday in preparation for a mid-week liftoff. Shukor will spend 12 days at the international space station and return to Earth on October 21 with two Russian members of the current space station crew. In the 12 days trip, Shukor is to do a research on the effects of microgravity and space radiation on cells and microbes so as experiments with proteins for a potential HIV vaccine…

“The rocket adorned with a Malaysian flag and coat of arms and carrying a Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft was moved Monday to the launch pad from its assembly site at the Baikonur cosmodrome, which Russia rents from Kazakhstan. The US$25 million (approx. RM8.5 million) agreement for a Malaysian astronaut to fly to space was negotiated in 2003 along with a US$900 million (approx. RM3058 million) deal for Malaysia to buy 18 Russian fighter jets.”

Whitson and Malenchenko will stay on as the station’s new crew, and will be joined in October by U.S. astronaut Daniel Tani, who is arriving with the shuttle Discovery. Tani will replace fellow American Clayton Anderson, who has been at the station since June.

MALAYSIA BOLEH!

Full story at CNN
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