KARACHI: Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry has announced that Pakistan will send its first person to space in the year 2022.

“Proud to announce that selection process for the first Pakistani to be sent to space shall begin from Feb 2020,” he tweeted on Thursday.

“Fifty people will be shortlisted — list will then come down to 25 and in 2022, we will send our first person to space,” he said.

Pakistan’s space programme, announced 50 years after the US Apollo 11 mission put the first man on the moon, marks a departure after focusing on developing communication satellites.

“This will be the biggest space event of our history,” said the minister.

Speaking to Dawn.com, Mr Chaudhry said the Pakistan Air Force would be the custodian of the selection process, adding that all around the world pilots were selected for space missions.

He said that initially 50 pilots would be selected, from which the list would be brought down to 25 and then to 10. He said 10 pilots would be trained and eventually one pilot would be sent to space.

Mr Chaudhry said there was an agreement between Pakistan and China and as the country did not have its own satellite launching facility, a Chinese facility would be used, as done previously.

A selection committee would begin choosing candidates in February 2020, he said.

The national space agency Suparco (Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Com­mis­sion) was set up in 1961.

It launched its first communication satellite 50 years later with help from a subsidiary of China Aerospace and Technology Corporation.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2019