São Paulo – United Arab Emirates vice president and prime minister and Dubai ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced on Saturday (10) that the first Arab female astronaut, Nora Al Matrooshi, has been selected alongside Mohammed Al Mulla from over 4,000 candidates. The new astronauts will train at NASA, in the United States, for future space missions.
Both Al Matrooshi and Al Mulla join the UAE Astronaut Programme alongside the previously recruited Hazzaa Al Mansoori and Sultan Al Neyadi, to a total of four astronauts.
Al Matrooshi is the first woman in the entire Arab world to become an astronaut. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the UAE University in 2015, she worked on getting experience in the field. Al Matrooshi represented the UAE at the United Nations Youth Conference in the summer of 2018 and the winter of 2019.
The UAE made history last February with the first Arab-led mission to go into orbit in Mars.
*With information from the state-run news agency WAM and the Emirates Woman website.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
