3 Filipino astronaut candidates to start Space Camp training

MANILA, Philippines -The three Filipino astronaut candidates who have been selected to be the country's representatives to the Axe Apollo Space Academy and take part on a 30-minute suborbital space flight next year, are now preparing for the final phase of their selection.

Axe Philippines Brand Manager Gem Laforteza said astronaut candidates Evan Rey Datuin, 24, from Cavite; Ramil Santos, 29, an engineer based in South Korea; Daniel Angelo Roque, a 22-year old fitness coach are now pursuing rigorous physical preparations for their four days of testing and evaluation at the Axe Space Camp in Orlando, Florida in December.

At the Axe Space Camp, Datuin, Santos and Roque will be made to undergo conditions that would simulate the zero-gravity of space and the extreme pressures brought by a spaceship's takeoff and re-entry to Earth.

Out of the three, only one Filipino candidate will be chosen to join 21 other astronauts from a field of 112 from 60 countries.

Datuin, Santos and Roque were selected from some 28,000 Filipino hopefuls who underwent a series of tests for eight months. The number was later trimmed to 4,000 and then later to  three. Roque replaced Philippine Air Force Lt. Mario Mendoza Jr. who volunteered to withdraw from the competition to serve his military duties as a pilot-in-training.

"Through the Axe Apollo Space Academy, we have set to inspire modern-day Filipino heroes to step forward. The title of first Filipino in space will go to the best candidate, someone all Filipinos can look up- figuratively and literally," said Laforteza.

It would be recalled that United Kingdom-based Unilever Group which manufactures the Axe line of men's hygiene products and Space Expedition Corporation (SXC) earlier announced a 22-flight seat purchase on XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx® Mark II private suborbital spacecraft for Unilever’s space-themed AXE Apollo™ campaign.

A terrestrial suborbital flight is one on which a spacecraft reaches near the space frontier, atmospheric limit, of approximately 100 km (frontier stablished by the international scientific community) but never completes on orbital revolution arround the Earth,

The space ship utilized by the AXE Apollo challenge is capable of performing horizontal take-off and landing, just as a conventional aircraft would, for a flight of 30 minutes. - Mike Frialde