UAE announces 1st Arab astronaut for 6-month-long mission in International Space Station

Sultan Al-Neyadi has been announced as the first Arab astronaut who will participate in the first long-term mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Al-Neyadi will become the second UAE astronaut to visit the space station, after Hazza Al Mansoori, during the Crew-6 mission which is targeted for launch in the spring of 2023. According to the Arab Times, he was selected for the mission from a pool of 4,000 candidates and has completed five years of training so far.

About Sultan Al-Neyadi

Al-Neyadi has undergone five years of intensive training in Russia, Germany and the US and was awarded NASA’s astronaut badge after completing 20 months of training at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre. He has spent around 1,400 hours in exercises preparing for activities such as spacewalks and survival training in case of emergency landing and rescue. 

A former student of the UK’s University of Brighton, he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering and a Ph.D. in Information Technology from Australia’s Griffith University. Prior to his selection, Al-Neyadi was a network security engineer in the UAE military. Al-Neyadi also accompanied Al-Mansoori in the training for the latter's 2019 spaceflight and served as a backup.

Al-Mansoori flew to the space station on September 25 in 2019 and spent eight days aboard the orbiting laboratory. On the other hand, Al-Neyadi will spend full six months in space and "conduct many in-depth and advanced scientific experiments as part of the UAE Astronaut Programme," an official release from the UAE Vice-President's office said. Notably, the future astronaut became part of the Crew-6 under an agreement signed last April between the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) and Axiom Space.

"It was an honour to be chosen for the first long-duration Arab astronaut mission. I am grateful for our wise leadership's trust, as well as the support of my colleagues at the UAE Astronaut Programme," Al-Neyadi said in his tweet.

The Crew-6 mission

It would mark the sixth manned spaceflight that SpaceX will launch to the ISS for NASA. Besides, Al-Neyadi, the crew includes NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg along with Russian cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev. According to Space.com, Fedyaev was added to the crew this month under the cross-flight agreement between NASA and Roscosmos. The agreement also applies to the Crew-5 mission, which would see Russia's female cosmonaut Anna Kikina fly to the space station this September.