ISTANBUL, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- Alper Gezeravci, a 44-year-old fighter pilot and colonel in the Turkish Air Force, on Friday began his two-week journey on the International Space Station (ISS) with a lift-off at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in the U.S. state Florida at about 00:49 a.m. local time in Türkiye (2149 GMT Thursday).
Many citizens gathered at city centers in Istanbul, Ankara and other regions across Türkiye to witness the historic live launch of Türkiye's first astronaut into space on giant screens installed in the main squares.
Gezeravci's first message in space was "The future is in the sky," a famous quote of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Türkiye.
"I've been dreaming about this for a long time. It's a great feeling. Everything has been very good from the beginning until now," he said.
Turkish Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacir, who was present in Florida for the launch, said that Gezeravci will conduct 13 different scientific experiments on the ISS.
"All experiments, we are sure, will make a great contribution to the scientific literature in the world," he was quoted as saying by the state-run Anadolu news agency.
In a video message, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Türkiye has witnessed a historic moment.
Erdogan announced last year that Gezeravci would be the first-ever Turkish space traveler as part of Türkiye's National Space Program launched in 2021. ■
