Eighteen tasks have been selected for Korea’s first astronaut.

The Ministry of Science and Technology and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute said that they will ask the first Korean astronaut to perform 13 basic science experiments and five educational tasks.

They include using a special scale developed to measure mass in a gravity-free environment and finding out how water freezes in space.

The first Korean astronaut will board the Russian Soyuz spacecraft in April 2008 and carry out the assigned tasks during an eight-day stay at the International Space Station.