Chennai, April 2 (IANS) The 60th anniversary of Russian astronaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin's spaceflight will be celebrated at the Global Space Exploration Conference - GLEX 2021 - to be held at St. Petersburg in Russia this June, said officials.

The GLEX 2021 a conference on space exploration is organised by International Astronautical Federation (IAF) and its member Russia's state space corporation Roscosmos.

The Russian astronaut was the first human to fly into the outer space in 1961.

Heads of various space agencies and industries are expected to participate in the conference. There will also be a small exhibition.

The GLEX 2021 will be the first in-person conference since the beginning of the global pandemic, IAF President, Pascale Ehrenfreund told the global media on Friday.

Recalling the Soviet spacecraft Vostok with Gagarin, Sergey Krikalev, Executive Director, Piloted Spaceflights, Roscosmos said that mission marked the beginning of a new space era in the history of mankind.

Krikalev said the GLEX conference will allow to build mutual understandings to implement ambitious projects on the Moon, Mars and beyond.

According to Ehrenfreund, the conference will also have the Next Generation Day co-organised by the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) and the IAF Workforce Development/Young Professionals Programme Committee, where high-level speakers, seniors and young people will assemble to discuss in-depth the subject of space exploration.

In conjunction with the conference, GLEX 2021 will also see the participation of 20 international astronauts from the Association of Space Explorers (ASE).

--IANS vj/rt