The Turkish Space Agency (TUA) will send 30 postgraduate and Ph.D. students abroad within the scope of the country’s YLYS-2021 (Selecting and Placing Students to be Sent Abroad for Postgraduate Education) program to contribute skilled labor for the space program's goals.

The YLYS-2021 applications will be received by the Ministry of National Education between Oct. 1 and Nov. 1, 2021.

The selected students, on behalf of the Turkish Space Agency, will receive education in various programs namely in the technologies for air and space platform optics, space law, radio navigation systems, radio astronomy, tracking and observing space trash, asteroids and meteors, missile systems and space technologies, and energy and propulsion technologies.

The agency said that a 30-student quota was allocated. The students are to be appointed as engineers, astronomers and lawyers after completing their studies abroad.

The move is set to contribute to “developing space awareness and human resources," one of the goals of the National Space Program.

Unveiled on Feb. 10, 2021, by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the 10-year space road map includes missions to the moon, sending Turkish astronauts to a scientific mission in space and developing internationally viable satellite systems.

Turkey established the TUA in 2018 with the aim of joining the handful of other countries with space programs.