Opinions & Interviews

Vasilevskaya: I devote my spaceflight to native Belarus

MINSK, 11 April (BelTA) – I devote my first spaceflight to my native Belarus and beloved Belarusians, cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya told the media after she received the Hero of Belarus title on 11 April, BelTA has learned.

According to Marina Vasilevskaya, she cannot believe that she has been named the Hero of Belarus, but she fully understands the responsibility of this title.

“I devote this spaceflight to my native Belarus, my beloved Belarusians who supported me,” she said.

Marina Vasilevskaya described the past space mission with the famous phrase “per aspera ad astra”. As we remember, there was a delay in the launch of the spacecraft due to an emergency situation, and the cosmonauts spent two days on the way to the ISS instead of initially scheduled several hours.

“We have done all the work, all the experiments, everything that we were supposed to do,” the cosmonaut said. “There are even the results of some experiments, which makes me very happy: everything worked out well.”

Marina Vasilevskaya returned from space with new impressions of the planet. In her words, it is powerful, yet fragile. "There is a lot of information I want to tell you about our beautiful Earth. It is very powerful, beautiful, yet it seems to be so fragile because it is protected only by a layer of atmosphere,” she said.

The cosmonaut continues her post flight rehabilitation program. Marina Vasilevskaya noted that she felt well.

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