2 min read
Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Fawad Chaudhary has said in a recent tweet that Pakistan will send its first person to space in 2022 to mark the biggest space event in the country’s history.
Fawad Ch has become an internet sensation since he was appointed minister sci-tech mainly due to his high ambitions and witty remarks. Just a couple of days ago India launched its second Moon mission Chandrayaan-2 and apparently our sci-tech minister is taking inspirations from India’s remarkable feet.
Fawad Ch is now motivated enough to announce that the selection process to send Pakistan’s first citizen to space will start from February 2020. He said that initially, the government will select fifty people for its space mission. Afterward, they will further shortlist 25 people and hence, one would be selected for the space program by 2022. As he wrote on Twitter;
“Proud to announce that selection process for the first Pakistani to be sent to Space shall begin from Feb 2020, fifty people will be shortlisted — a list will then come down to 25 and in 2022 we will send our first person to space, this will be the biggest space event of our history.”
Last year in October, Fawad had said that Pakistan is gearing up to send a human to space by 2022. He was holding the position of Ministry for information and broadcasting at that time. He vowed to make the country’s space program a success and further said that Chinese assistance would be sought in this matter.
It is worth mentioning here that Pakistan’s supreme space research authority, Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco) has been a key player in the region when it comes to the research projects regarding space.
With the collaboration of Suparco and some Chinese companies, Pakistan was able to launch two indigenously built satellites into orbit, using a Chinese launch vehicle. Those satellites were launched onboard a Chinese Long March (LM-2C) rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre located at the Gobi desert in China.
One of the satellites launched by Suparco was called PAK-TES-1A, while the other was a remote sensing satellite (PRSS1) – a dual-purpose Earth observational and optical satellite.
