Korean Astronaut Program

Korean Astronaut Program
Hangul
Hanja
Revised Romanization	Hanguk ujuin baechul saeop
McCune–Reischauer	Hankuk uchuin paech'ul saŏp

The Korean Astronaut Program was an initiative by the South Korean government to send the first Korean into space via the Russian space program.

On December 25, 2006, two candidates, one woman and one man, were selected by South Korea during a ceremony held at SBS television center in Dungchon-dong, Seoul. This choice was the result of a comprehensive selection process which started with the screening of 36,000 applications.

The eight other finalists were:

The winning pair was sent to Russia early 2007 to undergo a 15-month training course at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow.

On September 5, 2007, Ko San was named as the prime candidate, whilst Yi So-yeon served as his backup. However, on March 10, 2008 it was announced that the prime candidate was changed to Yi So-yeon due to several violations of training protocol by Ko San. Ko San served as backup.

On April 8, 2008 Yi So-yeon took off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan at 11:16 GMT aboard Soyuz TMA-12. She spent ten days conducting scientific experiments aboard the International Space Station.

It cost South Korea approximately 26 billion won (28 million USD) to pay for the training and spaceflight.

In 2014, Yi So-yeon resigned from the program, to pursue an MBA, which was incompatible with continuing as an astronaut.

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