by An astronaut from an Arab nation will head to the International Space Station (ISS) for a long-term stay next year for the first time, if all goes according to plan.
The Houston company axiom space announced today (April 29) that it has signed an agreement with the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC), the space agency of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to take a UAE astronaut to the orbiting laboratory in from SpaceX Mission Crew-6, due to launch in 2023.
An astronaut from the UAE has been to the ISS once; Hazza Al Mansoori traveled to the orbiting laboratory aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in the fall of 2019 and lived there for eight days. But Crew-6 is expected to be a full-length mission from the ISS, lasting around six months.
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“Axiom Space is proud to provide the MBRSC with a flight opportunity for a UAE astronaut, enabling its first long-term mission to the ISS,” said Michael Suffredini, president and CEO of Axiom Space, in a statement. company statement today.
The seat was from Axiom to sell thanks to a exchange with NASA. The agency traded him in for an Axiom-acquired seat on a Soyuz that was eventually filled by NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, who returned home on March 30 after a record 355-day stay aboard the ISS.
“As the seats were deemed of equal value, there will be no future exchange of funds between NASA and Axiom for the flight opportunity,” Axiom representatives wrote in the same statement. “Axiom’s agreement with MBRSC is between the company and the UAE space agency.”
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Axiom Space aims to assemble and operate its own space station in low Earth orbit, but the company also organizes manned flights to the ISS. In fact, Axiom has just sent the first entirely private astronaut mission to the orbiting lab – a flight with SpaceX called ax-1which was released on April 8th and dropped last Monday (April 25th).
Crew-6 will be the sixth operational astronaut mission that SpaceX flies to the ISS for NASA. The four-person mission will be led by NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen and will feature the agency’s Warren Hoburg as pilot. The identities of the other two crew members – including the UAE astronaut – have yet to be announced.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out there” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or in Facebook.
