At 5:16 pm (11:16 am GMT) on Tuesday, the first Korean was launched into space on a Russian Soyuz TMA-12 spaceship. The launch took place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the world’s oldest space launch pad.

South Korea's first astronaut said Wednesday that she is fully prepared to carry out her scientific assignments when she blasts into space next month.

STAR CITY (Moscow region). March 17 (Interfax) - Head of the Russian cosmonauts' training center Lt. Gen. Vasili Tsibliyev sees no problem with the replacement of the main South Korean candidate for the space flight to the International Space Station (ISS) Ko San for his replacement Yi Soo-yeon.

A woman has been chosen to be the first South Korean in space after a male astronaut was dismissed for security violations. Ko San was replaced by Russian space authorities for taking sensitive training materials outside the Russian space center, The Korea Times reported Monday.

Text of report by Gazprom-owned, editorially independent Russian news agency Ekho Moskvy Moscow, 10 March: The reports nearly accusing a South Korean astronaut of "espionage" are not true, Russian Federal Space Agency's (Roskosmos) press secretary Aleksandr Vorobyev has told radio Ekho Moskvy.