The Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau has praised Davis Saint-Jacques for his first trip to space and flying the flag of the country.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who said this after a successful take off and landing of Davis Saint-Jacques and other crew members, said the country is immensely proud of him.
Taking to his social media handle, he said:
“Godspeed, @Astro_DavidS. I know how proud you are to be wearing our flag in space, and we’re all immensely proud of you.
This is a historic day for Canada: one of our own scientists is launching into space and I could not be more proud. I’m especially excited for the young Canadians today who are watching @Astro_DavidS and being inspired to pursue a career in science and research.”
David Saint-Jacques who is a Canadian Astronaut embarked on his first adventure in space, which took him over nine years to accomplished.
David Saint-Jacques is an Engineer, astrophysicist and physician, he was chosen as a Canadian Space Agency astronaut back in May of 2009, along with Jeremy Hansen.
David Saint-Jacques, embarked on the journey with the ISS Expedition 58 crew, NASA astronaut Anne McClain and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko.
The Soyuz MS-11 mission launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6:31 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, carrying the trio into space for a 4-orbit ‘speed route’ to the ISS.
According to report, before 2013, a trip to the space station took around two days to complete, as the rocket lofts the spacecraft into orbit, and the crew slowly matches speed and altitude with the station over 34 orbits.
Since March 2013, with the Soyuz TMA-08M launch, a new flight trajectory developed by Roscosmos allows that same trip to takes just over six hours.
NASA’s Anne McClain, Canada’s David Saint-Jacques and Russia’s Oleg Kononenko lifted off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan into sunset skies as scheduled at 5:31 p.m. local time (3:31 a.m. PT).