United Arab Emirates’ first astronaut knows September flight ‘great milestone’ for country
Hazzaa Al Mansoori was not yet alive when the founder of the United Arab Emirates met with three Apollo-era astronauts in 1976, but he says that moment still inspired him to become an astronaut.
He’ll carry a photo capturing the moment — when Sheikh Zayed met with American astronauts Tom Stafford, Vance Brand and Deke Slayton in the UAE —
to the International Space Station this fall, when he becomes the first Emirati astronaut in space.
“This mission is a great milestone for me personally and for my country and for the whole Arab region in general,” Al Mansoori said Monday during a news conference at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“I’m looking forward to coming back with knowledge and experience to share with everyone.”
Al Mansoori, a military test pilot, will spend just eight days on the space station, a trip made possible via a contract with the Russian space agency, Roscosmos. He has been training for the mission since September, he said.
NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka will join Al Mansoori on Sept. 25 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft that will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz has been the sole method of human transportation to the space station since 2011, when the U.S. space shuttle program was shuttered.
Country officials hope the September launch with inspire the next generation, said Yousuf Hamad Al Shaibani, director general the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, in June.
“We strive to see the UAE Astronaut Programme achieve its objective of preparing generations of Emiratis who will contribute to enhancing the country's position in space science and research to serve the ambitious aspirations aimed at building a national knowledge-based economy,” Al Shaibani said.
The United Arab Emirates launched its national space program in 2014, announcing goals to send a probe to Mars in 2021 and to set up a human colony on the Martian surface by 2117.
But the program had more immediate human exploration goals. It began searching for the country’s first astronaut in 2017, according to an April 2017 article in Gulf News, an English newspaper in the UAE.
More than 4,000 Emiratis between the ages of 17 and 67 applied. Al Mansoori was selected in April.
Before being tapped, Al Mansoori went through a series of tests that measured his intelligence, neurocognitive ability, memory and personality. After clearing those hurdles, he and several other finalists traveled to Russia for more training that included winter survival skills, Russian language skills and exposure to a zero gravity environment, according to the National, an English-language journalism organization in the Middle East.
Al Mansoori’s time on the space station is significantly shorter than the typical, six-month stint on the orbiting laboratory, but he’ll be busy while there.
Along with giving a tour of the space station in Arabic, he will conduct 15 experiments during his short time on the station that were selected via a competition, according to the National.
“This is a huge responsibility for me, to be the first from our country and this program,” he said. “For me, I started to look at the stars since childhood and for me, to reach here was impossible but it’s not impossible now.”
Al Mansoori, whose age was reported as 34 in April, will return to Earth on Oct. 3 alongside NASA’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Alexey Ovchinin.
Al Mansoori thinks his 9year-old daughter might be even more excited than he is.
“My daughter called me yesterday and told me I only had 73 days to go,” he said, laughing. “I’m really excited to make sure I share with them the whole experience.”