It’s a proud moment for the UAE! Sultan AlNeyadi will be the first astronaut from an Arab nation to conduct a long-duration mission on the International Space Station.
The announcement made on July 25th will see the United Arab Emirates astronaut fly to the orbiting lab on SpaceX’s Crew-6 mission. It is expected to launch in the spring of 2023. The mission is set for 6 months.
With this, the UAE will become the 11th country in history to send a long-term mission to space. This is a massive milestone considering that the country is relatively new in the sector.
Al-Neyadi is due to set a new record for the longest time an Arab astronaut has spent aboard the station.
Crew-6 will be the sixth operational astronaut mission that SpaceX flies to the ISS for NASA.
Sultan AlNeyadi is one of the first two astronauts from the UAE. He served as the back-up for Hazzaa AlMansoori for the country’s first mission to the ISS in September 2019. AlNeyadi and AlMansoori were selected to become the first Emirati astronauts from 4,022 candidates.
In 2019, fellow emirati Hazza al-Mansouri became the first person from the UAE in space and the first Arab to board the ISS, where he spent eight days conducting experiments and filming the first tour of the ISS in Arabic. Both men are members of Dubai’s Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center.
“I am proud to congratulate Sultan Al Neyadi on being selected as the 1st Arab astronaut to spend 6 months on the International Space Station as part of a mission to commence in 2023,” UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed said in a tweet. “This historic milestone builds on the strong foundations of the UAE’s burgeoning space program,” he added.
In reply, AlNeyadi thanked him on twitter saying, “Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Your Highness. My selection as the first Arab astronaut for a long-duration mission is a great honour and responsibility that I accept with a strong desire to raise the UAE flag high in space once more.”
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Your Highness. My selection as the first Arab astronaut for a long-duration mission is a great honour and responsibility that I accept with a strong desire to raise the UAE flag high in space once more. https://t.co/0GCMvQz0qg
— Sultan AlNeyadi (@Astro_Alneyadi) July 25, 2022
The mission to the ISS will include AlNeyadi and three other astronauts. Nasa’s Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, and Russian cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev.
AlNeyadi has undergone multiple spaceflight training programs since 2018. These include long-range ones as well. He has undergone more than 90 courses and has exceeded a total number of 1,400 training hours.
In recent years, the UAE has taken the lead in its space ambitions. They have been training several astronauts and aim to develop a lunar rover in the UAE and send it to the moon by 2024.
