The selection process took two years from a pool of over 36,000 young and healthy applicants. And last month, after a dramatic shift the final male contestant Ko San was replaced by his back-up Yi after Ko was found to have leaked training manuals from the Russian space training camp.

Yi, along with two other Russian cosmonauts, Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko, will leave on a mission to space in a Soyuz capsule to dock at the International Space Station.

The actual docking is expected to take place on the third day after Soyuz leaves the earth's atmosphere. The three first-time astronauts will spend around eight days at the space station after which they will return back to where they took off in Kazakhstan.

While Koreans anticipate the big day when they will watch the historic moment on television, the nation's space program has taken another leap forward -- the completion of the upper end portion of Korea's first small satellite.

The Korea Aerospace Research Institute says although the bottom half is likely to come from Russian technology, the latest accomplishment is home grown.

The two-stage satellite will undergo testing, with its use yet to be decided but researchers are confident that it will be up and ready for take off by December of this year at a launching center in South Jeolla Province.

Although at a starting point, Korea's space dream is about to become a reality as the 36th nation to produce an astronaut.

Arirang News