Dubai – The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai, the UAE announced that Hazza Al Mansoori (pictured, on the left) has been selected as the national astronaut that will travel to the International Space Station, with Sultan Al Neyadi (on the right) as his backup, Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported this Friday (12).
Both are training at Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, Russia. Mansoori will participate in an eight-day mission to the Space Station aboard a Soyuz-MS 15 spacecraft on 25 September. The launch will be from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. He will be the first Arab to travel to the station.
According to WAM, Mansouri will undertake scientific experiments. Mansoori is a fighter plane pilot while Neyadi is an engineer with a PhD in information technology.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda & Gabriel Pomerancblum
