Early in the following year, the first female Emirati astronaut is expected to complete a NASA programme and become qualified to participate in US-led space missions.
Early in the following year, the first female Emirati astronaut is expected to complete a NASA programme and become qualified to participate in US-led space missions.
Since January 2022, the female astronaut Nora Al Matrooshi and her coworker Mohammed Al Mulla have been undergoing training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
They are following in the footsteps of the first Emirati in space, Hazza Al Mansouri, and Sultan Al Neyadi, who is presently serving the longest space mission of any Arab nation on the International Space Station (ISS).
Al Matrooshi and Al Mulla recently finished training drills in the US as a part of NASA’s astronaut candidate training programme for the year 2021. As flight-eligible astronauts, they’re anticipated to graduate in the first quarter of 2024. Last year’s programme graduates included Maj Al Mansouri and Al Neyadi.
Al Matrooshi, a Saudi Arabian, was the first Arab woman to be chosen for an astronaut corps in 2020, and Rayyanah Barnawi, also a Saudi woman, was the first Arab woman to fly in space last month.
Al Matrooshi and Al Mulla were captured on camera during training sessions that included survival training in a secluded Alabama forest and lunar simulations at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
They received training in spacewalking suits at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, as well as instruction in supersonic jet flight and an understanding of the systems of the space station.
NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, now known as the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC), is where activities related to human spaceflight training, investigation, and flight control are carried out.
By resolution of the US Senate on February 19, 1973, it was renamed in memory of the late US president and native Texan, Lyndon B. Johnson. On 1,620 acres (660 ha), in Houston’s Clear Lake neighbourhood, which was given the official moniker “Space City” in 1967, it consists of a complex of 100 buildings.