The first female Emirati astronaut is set to graduate from a NASA program early next year, becoming eligible for US-led space missions.
The female astronaut, Nora Al Matrooshi, and her colleague Mohammed Al Mulla have been training at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston since January 2022.
They are following in the footsteps of Hazza Al Mansouri, the first Emirati in space, and Sultan Al Neyadi, who is currently on the Arab world’s longest space mission on the International Space Station (ISS).
Al Matrooshi and Al Mulla recently completed training exercises in the US as part of NASA’s 2021 astronaut candidate class training program. They are expected to graduate in early 2024 as flight-eligible astronauts. Maj Al Mansouri and Al Neyadi graduated from the program last year.
Al Matrooshi was the first Arab woman selected for an astronaut corps in 2020, while Rayyanah Barnawi from Saudi Arabia became the first Arab woman to go on a space mission last month.
In a video released by NASA, Al Matrooshi and Al Mulla were seen during their training sessions, which included survival training in a remote forest in Alabama and exploring lunar simulations at the Marshall Space Flight Centre.
At NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, they learned to wear a spacewalking suit, and they will also receive training on flying supersonic jets and understanding the systems of the space station.
Mashallah well done Sister