A historical achievement for UAE and Arabs
The UAE had earlier successfully launched a spacecraft to orbit Mars. Apart from this, the Rashid rover, the UAE’s lunar mission launched from a Japanese lander, is expected to reach the lunar surface by April this year. Saudi Prince Sultan bin Salman was the first Arab citizen to go into space. He went into space in 1985 in the space shuttle Discovery. Two years later, Syrian astronaut Mohammad Faris, who went into space as part of a Russian mission, became the second. Both had spent about a week in space. But Al Niadi will have the distinction of being the first Arab to stay in space for six months. In the next few months, two astronauts from Saudi Arabia will join Al Niadi on a private SpaceX flight at government expense. With this, the arrival of three Arabs in the space station at the same time will mark a new history.
Four persons including Niadi were in the casket
In addition to UAE’s Sultan Al Nayadi, NASA’s mission commander Stephen Bowen, pilot Warren Hoberg and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fed Yaev are aboard the rocket’s SpaceX Dragon probe. Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX has returned to NASA’s International Space Station with four astronauts. After a journey of more than 25 hours, the spacecraft will land at the dock of the International Space Station, about 420 km from Earth. The first attempt at launch, which was supposed to take place last Monday, was postponed at the last minute due to a clogged filter in the engine’s ignition system. NASA’s Stephen Bowen is a retired Navy officer who has flown three space shuttle flights. Contributor Warren “Woody” Hoberg is a former research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Andrey Fedeyev is a retired officer of the Russian Air Force.
More than 250 researches are the goal of the group
Niadi and his team will send back US, Russian and Japanese passengers who have been on the International Space Station since last October. Apart from them, there will be two Russians and an American on the space station. The Sultan Al Niadi Space Station will spend six months conducting research as part of NASA’s Crew Six. The group is targeting more than 250 researches. Al Niadi, a communications engineer, worked as an assistant to Hassa Al Mansouri, the first Emirati astronaut to board a Russian rocket for a week-long visit to the space station in 2019. Al Niadi’s trip on SpaceX is sponsored by the UAE government.
UAE says space mission successful
The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center announced that the UAE’s second space mission, named Zayed Mission Two, was a success. Celebrities had reached the space center to watch the live footage of the journey. UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed and Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid congratulated Sultan Al Nayadi. The UAE’s Minister of Public Education and Advanced Technology, Sara Al-Amiri, said the long-duration space mission opens up new opportunities for the country and science. “We don’t just want to go to space,” said Sali Al Marri, director general of the UAE’s space center in Dubai. He also informed that the UAE is targeting activities in space that will have a big impact in this area.
