São Paulo – The first United Arab Emirates astronaut has gone into space this Wednesday (25). Hazza Al- Mansoori will also be the first Arab aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Russian spacecraft Soyuz MS-15 was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Besides Al-Mansoori, American NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka took flight a few minutes before 8 pm (local time) bound to the ISS. The trio is supposed to land after a six-hour flight.
“I will try to remember each second of the launch itself,” Al-Mansoori said during a news conference earlier this month. “Because it’ll be really very important for me to share it with everyone and my country, the entire world and the Arab region.”
A 35-year-old father of four, Al-Mansoori is the third Arab astronaut to go into space. The first one was Saudi prince Sultan Bin Salman, who participated in the Discovery space shuttle mission in 1985. Second one was Syrian astronaut Muhammad Faris, who participated in a Syrian-Soviet mission in 1987.
Al-Mansoori will conduct a series of experiments on the ISS, including one studying oil emulsification in a weightless environment, as well as a second to germinate a palm date seed native to the country. The astronaut will come back to Earth on October 3rd.
Check out the spacecraft launching on the video below.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda