Sultan Al Neyadi to go into orbit on 26 February

An astronaut from the United Arab Emirates, Sultan Al Neyadi, will travel to the International Space Station on 26 February 2023. The Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon Endeavour spacecraft are scheduled to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Crew-6 mission will feature NASA astronauts Steven Bowen and Warren Hoburg as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev in addition to Sultan Al Neyadi. They will be aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, called Endeavour, connected to a Falcon 9 rocket.

The six-month mission will include several scientific experiments and studies. The Emirati astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi will make his first flight to Earth’s orbit and become a flight engineer for NASA’s 69th expedition. The UAE will become the 11th country in history to send its citizen on such a long-term space journey.

In December 2022, the United Arab Emirates-built Rashid lunar rover set off on its first space voyage. The launch took place from the Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome in Florida. It is planned to reach the surface of the moon in five months and land in April.

At the end of 2023, the UAE hopes to launch MBZ-Sat, the region’s most powerful aerial imaging satellite. The 800-kilogram satellite, named after the country’s president Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, will go into orbit aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.

In the summer of 2022, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates, announced the establishment of a Dhs 3bn (approx US$ 817m) fund to support space development. The fund will support new pioneering programmes and research in the field of space exploration.

Source: Gulf Business

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