The National Space Agency plans to send a chef and a fashion designer to the US-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration to research how to prepare "roti canai," a flat Indian bread, to eat in space and as well as making spacesuits from traditional batik, reports said Wednesday.

"We will have a program called 'Batik in Space' and we will also launch a program called 'Roti Canai in Space' to see how we can bring Malaysia delicacies up to the space station," the agency's director-general Mazlan Othman was quoted as saying by The Star.

"We will research ways to bring our astronauts' favourite food into space."

Russia will send Malaysia's first cosmonaut into space in October 2007 as part of a scientific mission aboard the International Space Station.

The two countries signed a deal to send Malaysia's first cosmonaut into space onboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft during a visit to Malaysia by Russian President Vladimir Putin in August 2003. It is part of a billion-dollar deal for 18 Sukhoi 30-MKM fighter jets.

Two Russian experts are expected to arrive in Kuala Lumpur month to help select candidates.

If the Malaysian astronaut selected is Muslim, Mazlan said they would also consult an Islamic cleric to help determine prayer times in space and the direction of the Mecca for prayers.

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