First Arab female astronaut reaches space station
Sponsored by Saudi Arabia, Rayyanah Barnawi, a breast cancer researcher, is the first Arab woman to go to space.
A private rocket carrying the first Arab woman astronaut has blasted off on a mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
Rayyanah Barnawi, a breast cancer researcher from Saudi Arabia, was joined on Sunday’s mission by fellow Saudi Ali al-Qarni, a fighter pilot. They took off on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in the southern United States at 5:37pm local time (21:37 GMT).
The team also includes Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who will be making her fourth flight to the ISS, and John Shoffner, a businessman from Tennessee who is serving as pilot.
The four should reach the space station in their capsule on Monday morning and will spend just over a week there before returning home with a splashdown off the coast of the southern US state of Florida.
“Hello from outer space! It feels amazing to be viewing Earth from this capsule,”
Barnawi said after settling into orbit.
Sponsored by the Saudi government, Barnawi had said earlier that it was “a great pleasure and honour” to be the first Saudi woman astronaut to voyage into space.
Aside from excitement for the research she will carry out on board, she said she was looking forward to sharing her experience with children while on the ISS. “Being able to see
their faces when they see astronauts from their own region for the first time is very thrilling,” she said.
A career fighter pilot, alQarni said he has “always had the passion of exploring the unknown and just admiring the sky and the stars”.
“It is a great opportunity for me to pursue this kind of passion that I have, and now maybe just fly among the stars,” he said.