Hungary plans to send its second-ever astronaut in space in 2024, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced on Wednesday at the Space 19+ conference in Seville, Spain.
“The space industry will be one of the most important industries in the future. For Hungary, this means a new opportunity for development and currently, the focus is on training the second Hungarian astronaut and sending him to the International Space Station (ISS). With the assistance of [Russian space agency] Roscosmos, this can realistically be achieved by 2024,” Szijjártó said at the conference organized by the European Space Agency (ESA).
He added that this week Hungary will also launch its second and third satellites from New Zealand, both of which will measure and study electrosmog levels in the stratosphere. The country also supplies – in cooperation with Russia – various measurement instruments to the ISS and its future plans include the launch of another satellite by 2024.
Szijjártó did not say who the next Hungarian astronaut will be.
The country’s first and so far only astronaut was Bertalan Farkas, who spent seven days in space during the Soviet Soyuz 36 mission in 1980.
There was also another Hungarian in space, the Hungarian-born American software architect Charles Simonyi, developer of the first Microsoft Office, but he visited space as a tourist. Simonyi has now journeyed to the ISS three times in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
Title image: Minister of foreign affairs and trade Péter Szijjártó at the Space 19+ conference in Seville, Spain. (MTI/Mátyás Borsos)
