Top cosmonaut to assess progress of Irish-Russian space research during visit

A cosmonaut who works for a space research agency part-funded by a billionaire Russian oil baron will visit Europe’s largest radio telescope in East Cork this weekend.

Sergei Zhukov will tour the National Space Centre’s Elfordstown facility outside Midleton and assess the progress made on plans signed by Ireland and Russia at the 8th Russian-Irish Joint Economic Commission last November, which will see the two nations working together across a range of space and physics-related programmes.

Mr Zhukov is a Russian research cosmonaut who instructed cosmonauts and supervised several astrophysics and radiobiology experiments aboard the Mir Space Station.