OREANDA-NEWS. November 17, 2008. Next autumn one of two Kazakh cosmonauts will make a mission to the International Space Station. This was announced by Talgat Musabaev, Chairman of the Kazakhstan Space Agency.

This was the only opportunity for a Kazakh cosmonaut to get to the ISS- to perform a commercial flight for 10 days. Kazakhstan government has already approved the mission.

Scientific program for Kazakh cosmonaut will be prepared by the National Center of Space Research and Technologies.

Final selection of a cosmonaut to fly will be made by a special board. For the moment, the names of two candidates are known: Mukhtar Aimakhanov and Aydyn Aimbetov. Both have completed training cource at GCTC. Other candidates are still to pass training and exams.

Russian side also informed the journalists that a Kazakh kid, who wins in Children`s Drawing Contest "World and Space", will come to Baikonur to watch the launch. The contest has been announced recently by Roscosmos.