In a tweet on Thursday, Chauhdry said,"Proud to announce that selection process for the first Pakistani to be sent to Space shall begin from Feb 2020, fifty people will be shortlisted — list will then come down to 25 and in 2022 we will send our first person to space, this will be the biggest space event of our history."
https://twitter.com/fawadchaudhry
While many appreciated Chauhdry for such an initiative others claimed it as too good to be true hence undermining the government`s ability to pursue a manned mission to space.
It is pertained to mention here that neighboring India just sent one of its own Chandrayaan 2 earlier this week on an orbit-raising mission. It is expected to reach the moon by August 2020.
Chaudhry upon taking over the ministry has announced various initiatives fro a ministry which was not in the limelight before. In one of his initiatives, Chauhdry has announced to organize an event titled 'Think Fest', which will feature science projects and innovative ideas from all over the world.
Pakistan has already launched two indigenously built satellites into orbit, using a Chinese launch vehicle. The satellites were launched onboard a Chinese Long March (LM-2C) rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre located at the Gobi desert, China.