Saudi Arabia will ship its first ever lady astronaut on a space mission later this 12 months, state media has reported, within the newest transfer to revamp the dominion’s ultra-conservative picture.
Rayyana Barnawi will be part of fellow Saudi male astronaut Ali Al-Qarni on a mission to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) “in the course of the second quarter of 2023”, the official Saudi Press Company stated on Sunday.
The astronauts “will be part of the crew of the AX-2 space mission” and the space flight will “launch from the USA”, the company stated.
The oil-rich nation will likely be following within the footsteps of the neighbouring United Arab Emirates which in 2019 turned the primary Arab nation to ship one in all its residents into space.
On the time, astronaut Hazzaa al-Mansoori spent eight days on the ISS. One other fellow Emirati, Sultan al-Neyadi, can even make a voyage later this month.
Nicknamed the “Sultan of Area”, 41-year-old Neyadi will grow to be the primary Arab astronaut to spend six months in space when he blasts off for the ISS aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Gulf monarchies have been searching for to diversify their energy-reliant economies by a plethora of initiatives.
Saudi de facto chief Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has additionally been attempting to shake off the dominion’s austere picture by a push for reforms.
Since his rise to energy in 2017, ladies have been allowed to drive and to journey overseas with no male guardian, and their proportion within the workforce has greater than doubled since 2016, from 17 p.c to 37 p.c.
Saudi Arabia’s foray into space is just not the primary, nonetheless.
In 1985, Saudi royal Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, an airforce pilot, took half in a US-organised space mission, changing into the primary Arab Muslim to journey into space.
In 2018, Saudi Arabia arrange a space programme and final 12 months launched one other to ship astronauts into space, all a part of Prince Salman’s Imaginative and prescient 2030 agenda for financial diversification.
© 2023 AFP
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Saudi Arabia to ship its first lady into space (2023, February 13)
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