Here's a time line of Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor's life:
Childhood & Early Life
- 1972 - Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor was born on 27 July 1972 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His father, Datuk Sheikh Mustapha Abdul Shukor, was a businessman, based in Negeri Sembilan. His mother’s name is Datin Zuraidah Sheikh Ahmad.
- 1979 - When he was young, his parents laid great emphasis on developing him and his siblings body, intellect and soul, beginning their morning with Subuh prayers and then going for a long swim in order to build their stamina. By the time he reached seven, Muszaphar had completed his first Quran Recitation.
- 1979 - He began his schooling at St Paul’s School in Seremban from where he completed his primary education. Thereafter, he was enrolled at Maktab Rendah Sains MARA (MRSM), a boarding school located in Muar, Johor, where he studied from Form One to Form Five.
- 1990 - He entered Kasturba Medical College, located in Manipal, India, on full scholarship, provided by government of Malaysia. Here, he studied for seven years, first completing his A-level, eventually earning his MBBS degree in 1997.
Early Career
- 1998 - On earning his MBBS degree, Sheikh Muszaphar returned to Malaysia, where he joined Seremban Hospital for his compulsory internship.
- 1999 - Thereafter, he joined Kuala Lumpur General Hospital serving there for one year.
- 2000 - He moved to Selayang Hospital, where he served till 2001.
- 2002 - He joined Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM), where he also underwent training for his master’s degree in Orthopedic Surgery, eventually earning his degree from there. Thereafter, he started working as a trainee lecturer at the same institution.
- 2003 - While studying for his master’s degree, he got involved with the Malaysian Medical Relief Society, traveling with them to Cambodia, serving the victims of the disastrous flood without any thought to his own safety.
- 2004 - Again in 2004, when an earthquake hit Afghanistan, he diligently served the survivors there. Concurrently while working for his master’s degree and serving the victims of natural calamities, he also started commercial modeling, appearing for many well-known brands. Sometime now, he also cofounded a restaurant called Rebung, which offered authentic Malay cuisine, doing a lot of work with his own hand.
Preparing for Space Travel
- 2002 - In 2002, Agensi Angkasa Negara was set up in order to stimulate Malaysia’s space program. In 2003, an agreement was signed with Russian Federation, whereby it was decided that Russia would bear the cost of training two Malaysians for space travel and send one to the International Space Station.
- 2005 - Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor was always interested in space travel and dreamt of becoming another Yuri Gagarin or Neil Armstrong. However, he was not alone in this. 11,435 applicants, including the three Shukor brothers, Sheikh Ahmad, Sheikh Taufik and Sheikh Muszaphar, registered for the program.
- 2006 - While Sheikh Ahmad did not make it to the final 100, Sheikh Taufik was eliminated before reaching the final 59. Continuing to battle, Sheikh Muszapha, along with three other contestants, made to the final list. On 17 September 2006, Sheikh Muszaphar and Faiz Khaleed were chosen as the final contestants. They were then sent to Russia, where they underwent a one-year training program at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, called the Star City, located near Moscow.
Space Travel
- 2007 - In September 2007, Sheikh Muszaphar was chosen as a crew member of the Soyuz TMA-11. However, as a guest of Russian government, his designation was ‘Space Flight Participant’. Yury Malenchenko of Russia was the Commander of the mission, while Peggy Whitson of the United States was the flight engineer.
- October 10, 2007 - At 13:22 UTC (05:22 p.m. Moscow time), the mission was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It docked to the International Space Station (ISS) at 14:50 UTC on.
- October 12, 2007 - There they remained for ten days.
Earlier in an interview, Sheikh Muszaphar had said that he hoped to study various live cell cultures during his flight. During his stay in the space, he performed experiments on the characteristics and growth of liver cancer and leukemia cells as well as the crystallization of various proteins and microbes. While his work on liver cancer and leukemia cells would help the medical science, his experimentations on crystallization of proteins and microbes were meant for industrial benefits.
- October 13, 2007 - Sheikh Muszaphar celebrated Eid ul-Fitr, handing out some satay and cookies he had brought from home to the rest of the crew. Eventually on 21 October 2007, he returned to Earth aboard Soyuz TMA-10 with the Expedition 15 crew members, Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov.
Awards & Achievement
- 2010 - Sheikh Muszaphar is now a Fellow Researcher at Institute of Space Science National University of Malaysia UKM. He has been awarded Leonov Award 2010 by the Association of Space Explorers and Malaysian Icon Award 2010 by Malaysia Book of Records.
- 2011 - In 2011, he was awarded Meritus Award by Open University Malaysia. Also in the same year, he was appointed an Honorary Colonel by Malaysian Volunteer Corps Department (RELA) and an Ambassador by Make-A-Wish Foundation.
*Timeline details courtesy of TheFamousPeople.com.