A crew with Türkiye’s first astronaut and three other members blasted off on Thursday on a voyage to the International Space Station (ISS), in what President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said marked a “historic” moment for the country.
A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule fixed to the top of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Axiom-3 mission quartet lifted off about an hour before sunset from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, beginning a planned 36-hour flight to the orbiting laboratory.
Alper Gezeravcı, the first person from Türkiye to rocket into space, is accompanied by a Swede and an Italian, all with military pilot experience and representing their homelands. Their escort on the trip: A retired NASA astronaut who now works for Texas startup Axiom Space, the company that arranged the private flight.
Their capsule should reach the space station early on Saturday. They will spend two weeks performing experiments, chatting to schoolchildren and soaking in the views of Earth before returning home.
“The future is in the skies,” said Gezeravcı in his first remarks as astronauts checked in from orbit, reciting the words of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Türkiye.
“Starting from the end of the countdown all the way to here – a great ride. It has been a great feeling, as I have been dreaming of for so long … So it’s been great so far,” he noted.
“I’m so privileged and honored to be a part of this great team. Thank you so much, everybody, who has worked tremendously up until now for us to make it to this moment.”
A former fighter pilot and captain for Turkish Airlines, Gezeravcı noted Türkiye just celebrated its 100th anniversary and, until now, the nation’s view of the sky has been limited to “that we could see with our bare eyes.”
“Now, this mission is opening that curtain all the way,” he told reporters before the flight. “This is the beginning of our next centennial.”
“We are taking a step into the second century of our republic, the Century of Türkiye, with the manned space mission we have undertaken for the first time,” Erdoğan said in a video message on Thursday.
The president said as heirs of a civilization that has made significant contributions to the history of science, they are marking the start of a valuable new chapter, aiming to reenact the mission carried throughout history.
“For the first time, we are sending a citizen into space to inspire our young people who look to the horizon with a sparkle in their eyes and our children whose dreams cannot be contained within the world,” Erdoğan said.
Also flying: Sweden’s Marcus Wandt, a former fighter pilot and test pilot for Swedish Aeroplane Corp. who was chosen in 2022 as a reserve astronaut by the European Space Agency, and Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei, who flew to the edge of space last summer with Virgin Galactic.
Among the symbolic items they are taking up are a Nobel Prize medal from Sweden, fusilli pasta from Italy, and tokens of Türkiye’s nomadic culture.
Michael Lopez-Alegria launched four times as a NASA astronaut before joining Axiom Space and escorting its first chartered flight with them. He is the only repeat passenger on a SpaceX Dragon, the capsule that’s been used to ferry astronauts to the space station for NASA since 2020.
Reflecting on the unique privilege of space travel, Lopez-Alegria said it was “a real privilege for anybody to fly in space.”
“It’s particularly nice for me as a second time on Dragon. The sensations were equally amazing – acceleration, a little vibration, just a sense of going fast. And wow, what a thrill!” he added.
Villadei also expressed his excitement.
“It’s a privilege to be here, to fly over the Earth waiting to get into the ISS.”
Representing his country Sweden and Europe, Wandt said: “I didn’t really expect that sensation of acceleration and speed. There was fantastic, pure joy.”
“Getting up here and then feeling the microgravity is really weird. It’s also awesome. Just floating around and repositioning yourself wherever you’re doing,” he added.
The autonomously operated Crew Dragon is expected to reach the ISS on Saturday and dock with the outpost orbiting some 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth, which is currently occupied by seven regular crew members.
Live video streamed online by Axiom showed the two-stage, 25-story-tall launch vehicle streaking into partly cloudy skies over Florida’s Atlantic coast atop a fiery, yellowish tail of exhaust.
Cameras inside the crew compartment beamed footage of the four men strapped into their pressurized cabin, seated calmly in helmeted white-and-black flight suits as the rocket soared toward space.
Nine minutes after launch, the Falcon 9’s upper stage delivered the crew capsule to its preliminary orbit.
Responding to congratulations from mission control, flight commander Lopez-Alegría radioed back from the Crew Dragon, “As I was saying, it’s a team sport. Thank you, guys.”
Minutes earlier, the rocket’s reusable lower stage, having detached from the rest of the spacecraft, flew back to Earth and safely touched down on a landing zone near the launch site, eliciting cheers audible from the control room.
The trip is the third journey organized by Axiom Space with NASA and SpaceX over the past two years. The company charges its customers at least $55 million for each astronaut seat.
The mission marks “a milestone for the work we are doing in the Space Homeland and will carry out in the future,” Türkiye’s Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun said.
Altun said it marks a realization of a dream that has been anticipated for years.
“Türkiye is witnessing a historic moment,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır said Col. Gezeravcı’s journey would leave a lasting and positive mark on society in Türkiye.
“Not only Alper’s dreams but also the dreams of Turkish children and youth will exceed the limits of the sky,” Kacır told Anadolu Agency (AA) hours before the launch.
Liftoff was initially planned for Jan. 9 but was postponed twice to Jan. 17 and then to Jan. 18, among others, to allow more time for final inspections and data analysis, including an issue related to the parachute system used to slow the capsule’s return descent before splashdown, the company said.
Two weeks of orbital research
Plans for the Axiom-3 mission call for the crew to spend roughly 14 days in microgravity aboard the ISS, conducting more than 30 scientific experiments, many of them focused on the effects of spaceflight on human health and disease.
More symbolically, the mission reflects the growing number of nations venturing into Earth’s orbit to enhance global prestige, military prowess, and satellite-based communications.
Türkiye, a longtime applicant for EU membership, was poised to enter the exclusive but expanding club of ISS-guest countries by sending Gezeravcı on his nation’s debut human spaceflight as an Ax-3 mission specialist.
Axiom billed the flight as “the first all-European commercial astronaut mission” to the space station.
If all goes smoothly, they will be welcomed aboard ISS by the seven members of the station’s current regular crew – two Americans from NASA, one astronaut each from Japan and Denmark and three Russian cosmonauts.
In May 2023, Axiom-2 launched a team of two Americans and two Saudis, including Rayyanah Barnawi, a biomedical scientist who became the first Arab woman ever sent to orbit on an eight-day mission to the ISS.
SpaceX, the privately funded rocket and satellite company of billionaire Elon Musk, provides Axiom’s launch vehicles and crew capsules under contract, as it has for NASA missions to the ISS. SpaceX also runs mission control for its rocket launches from the company’s headquarters near Los Angeles.
Besides furnishing the launch site at Cape Canaveral, NASA assumes responsibility for the astronauts once they rendezvous with the space station.
Axiom, an eight-year-old venture headed by NASA’s former ISS program manager, is one of a handful of companies building a commercial space station of its own intended to eventually replace the ISS, which NASA expects to retire around 2030.
Launched to orbit in 1998, the ISS has been continuously occupied since 2000 under a U.S.-Russian-led partnership that includes Canada, Japan and 11 countries that belong to the European Space Agency.
Yusuf Kıraç, the president of the Turkish Space Agency (TUA), said Türkiye had been waiting for this for many years.
“Alper will hopefully successfully complete 13 scientific studies to pave the way for our country’s future endeavors,” Kıraç said.
“Today is a milestone for us, but it will continue. Our moon program, sending our people with our launch systems, is our main goal.”
Hasan Mandal, head of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBITAK), also called it a historic day.
“We are realizing one of the missions that will leave a mark on history in the Century of Türkiye,” said Mandal.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
