World Taekwondo sends federation flag into orbit ahead of 2027 world championships

World Taekwondo, the Seoul-based governing body for the Olympic sport and traditional martial art, said Wednesday it became one of the first international sports federations to send its official flag into space, as part of a one-year countdown to the 2027 World Taekwondo Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The flag launched aboard the Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft, which lifted off at 7:47 p.m. local time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the world's first and largest active space launch facility and the site from which Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space in 1961.

The launch was organized with the Kazakhstan Taekwondo Federation, led by its president, Kudrat Shamiyev.

World Taekwondo said the International Olympic Committee's flag had previously flown to space during the Sydney 2000 Olympics, and FIFA had sent match balls to the International Space Station, but that this marked the first time its own flag joined an active crewed mission.

The Soyuz crew includes Russian space agency Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina and NASA astronaut Anil Me ...