First Brazilian In Space To Blast Off On March 30

Marcos Pontes is pictured here in the middle during a recent visit to Moscow.

by Staff Writers
Star City, Russia (AFP) Feb 08, 2006
Brazil is to send its first man into space next month when an air force officer blasts off for the International Space Station (ISS), the officer told a news conference on Wednesday.

Marcos Pontes, 42, will accompany US astronaut Jeffrey Williams and Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov on a Russian Soyuz rocket that will take off from the Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan on March 30, he said.

He will spend about eight days aboard the ISS before returning to Earth with its current occupants, NASA's William McArthur and Russian Valery Tokarev, landing on April 9, Pontes said at the news conference at the Star City space training centre near Moscow.

Pontes has already undergone nearly eight months' training in the United States. While at the ISS he will oversee a number of nanotechnology experiments, he said.

Source: Agence France-Presse

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