TURKEY’S President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the country plans to land on the moon by 2023, in a press conference Tuesday 9 February during the inauguration ceremony of Turkey’s National Space Program and the Turkey Space Agency.
“Our first goal is to land on the moon by 2023, the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey, I believe Turkish engineers will manage to carry out this mission,” he said.
Erdoğan further stated that Turkey aims to build a spaceport with international cooperation. “Turkey’s second goal is to create a global brand that would compete in the field of next-generation satellite development,” he said.
Erdogan also declared Turkey’s aim to send Turkish citizens into space with international cooperation, to work with other countries on building a spaceport and to create a “global brand” in satellite technology.
“I hope that this roadmap, which will carry Turkey to the top league in the global space race, will come to life successfully,” he said.
Turkey established the Turkish Space Agency, or TUA, in 2018, with the aim of joining the handful of other countries with space programs.
During the event the TUA logo was also revealed. The logo spells out the letters TUA, an acronym for the agency’s name in Turkish, in red with the cutout of a star.
“The character of this movement” symbolized by the logo “ranges from the functional legibility of Western typography to the one-breath calligraphy of the ancient culture of the East,” the agency said on Twitter, pointing out that the star represents the Turkish flag.