SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA on Thursday, including the first person from the Arab world going up for an extended monthslong stay. The Falcon rocket bolted from Kennedy Space Center shortly after night, illuminating the night sky as it headed up the East Coast. The first attempt to launch them was called off Monday at the last nanosecond because of a clogged sludge in the machine ignition system. They will replace a U.S.- Russian- Japanese crew that has been over there since October.
The other station residents are two Russians and an American whose six-month stay was doubled, until September, after their Soyuz capsule sprang a leak. A relief Soyuz arrived last weekend. Al- Neyadi, a dispatches mastermind, served as backup for the first Emirati astronaut, Hazzaa al-Mansoori, who rode a Russian rocket to the space station in 2019 for a weeklong visit. The oil painting rich confederation paid for al- Neyadi’s seat on the SpaceX flight. The UAE’s minister for public education and advanced technology, Sarah al- Amiri, said the long charge “ provides us a new venue for wisdom and scientific discovery for the country. ” Nearly 80 observers from the United Arab Emirates watched from the launch point as astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi — only the alternate Emirati to fly to space — blasted off on his six-month charge. Half a world down in Dubai and away across the UAE, seminaries and services planned to broadcast the launch live.
Also riding the Dragon capsule that is due at the space station on Friday NASA’s Stephen Bowen, a retired Navy submariner who logged three space shuttle breakouts, and Warren “Woody” Hoburg, a former exploration scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and space newbie, and Andrei Fedyaev, a space novitiate who’s retired from the Russian Air Force. The Emirates formerly have a spacecraft ringing Mars, and a mini rover is hitching a lift to the moon on a Japanese lander. Two new UAE astronauts are training with NASA’s rearmost astronaut picks in Houston. Saudi Prince Sultan bin Salman was the first Arab in space, launching aboard shuttle Discovery in 1985. He was followed two times latterly by Syrian astronaut Muhammed Faris, launched by Russia. Both were in space for about a week. Al- Neyadi will be joined this spring by two Saudi astronauts going to the space station on a short private SpaceX flight paid by their government.