On April 10, all schools in Belarus will host a single lesson dedicated to the International Day of Human Space Flight.

To prepare such a lesson, the Academy of Education developed a plan that will help conduct the event taking into account the age characteristics of students in grades 1–4, 5–8 and 9–11.

The discussion focuses on the first space explorers, the first cosmonaut of sovereign Belarus, our country’s contribution to world space history, the use of “space” knowledge, and the scientific program of the Belarusian cosmonaut.

Students will see a film “Belarusians in Space! The hatches are open, the docking of the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft with the ISS was successful!” During the lesson, students will work in groups on the topic “Space exploration. Prospects for Belarusian cosmonautics”, they will also enjoy the quiz “Do you believe that...”, as well as the mini-game “Cosmonaut Training Center”.

Students will learn that all the most cherished dreams of the founders of astronautics were realized by Sergei Korolev. On October 4, 1957, the first artificial Earth satellite was launched. It circled the entire globe in an hour and a half, and during its 24-hour flight it made 15 complete revolutions around the Earth.

On April 7, 2011, a special plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly, adopted a resolution, officially declaring April 12 as the International Day of Human Space Flight. The date coincided with the 50th anniversary of the first human flight into space.

Yuri Gagarin made the first space flight in human history aboard the Vostok-1 spacecraft. In 1 hour 48 minutes, the astronaut circled the globe and returned safely to Earth.

The 108-minute flight was a powerful breakthrough in space exploration. Belarus made a colossal contribution to world space history and became one of the space powers, successfully sending its own Earth remote sensing satellite (ERS) into space on July 22, 2012.

On March 23, 2024, the crew of the 21st expedition, consisting of our compatriot, native of Cherven, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, the first cosmonaut of sovereign Belarus Marina Vasilevskaya, and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, set off for the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

In total, more than 600 people from 40 countries have been in space. And four of them - Pyotr Klimuk, Vladimir Kovalenok, Oleg Novitsky, Marina Vasilevskaya - are natives of our country.

The first Belarusian cosmonaut is Pyotr Klimuk, Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, scientist, colonel general of aviation, academician. In 1965, he was enrolled in the cosmonaut corps. He became a colleague of Yuri Gagarin when he was just 23. Klimuk was in space three times and spent 78 days in total, engaging in astrophysical observations and research.

Vladimir Kovalenko was not yet twenty-five when he was enrolled in the cosmonaut corps. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, pilot-cosmonaut, colonel general of aviation, he made three flights into space, spending a total of 216 days, including two hours in outer space.

Oleg Novitsky - Hero of Russia, a native of Belarus, travelled into space for the fourth time. He spent more than 530 days. Our compatriot became the commander of the Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft in 2012. It launched from Earth to the International Space Station on October 23. Flight duration was 143 days. Novitsky also went to the ISS on November 17, 2016 as expedition commander. He unfurled the Belarusian flag on board and took photographs of Minsk and other cities of Belarus from space. On April 9, 2021, on the manned spacecraft “Y.A. Gagarin (Soyuz MS-18) Novitsky made his third flight into space as a spacecraft commander.

And the first female cosmonaut in the history of sovereign Belarus was Marina Vasilevskaya. Our compatriot on the ISS completed a scientific program developed by the National Academy of Sciences together with Roscosmos and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Vasilevskaya’s current status takes our country to a new cosmic level. Marina also had a long-standing personal dream and she fulfilled it - in front of the whole world, our Belarusian flew higher than the sky.

Currently, solid prospects are opening up for the young people of our country to move forward. After all, space is the future of humanity.