Russian Space Agency confirms Cosmonautics Day postponed over coronavirus

MOSCOW, March 17. /TASS/. Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) confirmed that the traditional Cosmonautics Day concert has been postponed to autumn over the coronavirus spread, the Agency told TASS Tuesday. "In accordance with Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin’s decree, […] Roscosmos decided to postpone the traditional concert, dedicated to the Cosmonautics Day, to this autumn," the press service said. Earlier, a space industry told TASS that the Cosmonautics Day events would take place not on April 12 - the day when Yuri Gagarin took off to world’s first manned space flight - but on October 4 - the day when the Soviet Union has launched Sputnik, the Earth’s first artificial satellite. However, Roscosmos said that the new date has not been defined yet. Earlier, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin signed a decree that bans all mass events outdoors and mass events involving more than 50 participants indoors. Besides, due to the epidemic and state of emergency in Kazakhstan, journalists have been barred from visiting the Baikonur Cosmodrome. No journalists would attend the upcoming April 9 manned launch. On Monday, all launches from Guiana Space Center at French Guiana’s Kourou were cancelled. The pandemic An outbreak of the new coronavirus-related disease, which occurred in central China at the end of 2019, has spread to about 130 countries. The World Health Organization on March 11 declared it as a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, more than 170,000 have contracted the virus around the world. Almost 7,000 have died. Russia’s special task force has identified 93 coronavirus cases. Read more