President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan introduced on Saturday, Türkiye's first space traveler and his backup at Teknofest, the world's largest aviation, space and technology festival in Istanbul.

Speaking at the seventh edition of the tech festival, Erdoğan introduced Türkiye's first space traveler Alper Gezeravcı who will stay at the International Space Station for 14 days, and his backup Tuna Cihangir Atasever.

Gezeravcı is an accomplished pilot at the Turkish Air Forces Command while Atasever is an engineer working on space launch systems at the Turkish defense giant, Roketsan.

Erdoğan said Gezeravcı's space travel was planned for the last quarter of 2023.

"Our space traveler will conduct 13 different experiments prepared by esteemed university and research institutions of our country," Erdoğan stated.