SpaceX to launch NASA's historic Crew-6 mission to ISS on Feb 27 with Arab astronaut

NASA's Crew-6 mission is targeted for launch to the International Space Station (ISS) on February 27 aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket will lift off at 12:15 pm IST from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with four astronauts for the six-month-long mission. Crew-6 will be historic as astronaut Sultan Al-Neyadi from the UAE will become the first person from an Arab nation to visit the ISS for a long-term stay. Notably, it was Hazza Al-Mansoori who became the first Arab astronaut to visit space in 2019 but he only spent eight days in orbit. 

The other three crew members are mission commander Stephen Bowen, pilot Warren "Woody" Hoburg from NASA and mission specialist Andrey Fedyaev, a Russian cosmonaut. The launch was initially targeted for launch on February 26 but was delayed by a day for pre-flight checkouts of the Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX, on Thursday, shared pictures of the refurbished Dragon spacecraft rolling out of the hangar at the Launch Complex 39A with the Falcon 9 rocket. 

According to NASA, Crew-6 will be the fourth spaceflight for Bowen who previously flew during space shuttle missions STS-126 (2008), STS-132 (2010), and STS-133 (2011), while Hoburg, Alneyadi, and Fedyaev will experience their first. 

Meet the Crew-6 members

Al-Neyadi is a former student of the UK’s University of Brighton, and he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering and a Ph.D. in Information Technology from Australia’s Griffith University. He took 20 months of training at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre and has spent around 1,400 hours in exercises preparing for activities such as spacewalks and survival training. Al-Neyadi was selected for the mission from a pool of 4,000 candidates in 2017.

Bowen, a veteran of the Shuttle era, is a retired US Navy captain who qualified for spaceflight in 2002, two years after being selected for astronaut training by NASA. Out of the 40 days he spent in space, he has dedicated 47 hours and 18 minutes during seven spacewalks he has been a part of. Hoburg was once part of a research group at MIT as an aeronautics assistant professor and has previously worked for Boeing. Having joined NASA in 2017, he qualified for spaceflight in 2020, per Space.com. 

The Russian cosmonaut Fedyaev joined Roscosmos in 2012 and qualified as an astronaut two years later. Fedyaev also has military experience with 600 hours as a pilot. He is turning 42 on the day of his launch, the cosmonaut told Space.com.