2023-05-21 01:06:31
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Saudi Arabia is preparing to send two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). Takeoff is scheduled for this Sunday, May 21 at Cape Canaveral, in the United States. It’s a new spotlight on a kingdom looking to shed its conservative image.
A man, Ali Al-Qarni, and a woman, Rayyanah Barnawi. These are the names of the two Saudi astronauts who will join the International Space Station. For a little over a week, they will participate in several scientific experiments as well as awareness programs for Saudi students, explains our regional correspondent, Nicolas Keraudren. This mission has been described as ” historical by the head of the Saudi Space Commission.
Because it was only at the end of 2018 that this Commission was created following a royal decree. Since then, colossal investments in this field have been announced, until the completion, in September 2022, of a program for Saudi astronauts.
This strategy is part of the ” Vision 2030 ” of the Kingdom. Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading exporter of crude oil, which still largely depends on its oil revenues, is indeed seeking to diversify its economy, but also to restore its austere image.
Read also : Space: the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia want to think bigger
Axiom’s outsized projects in space
The mission in which Ali Al-Qarni and Rayyanah Barnawi take part is somewhat special, since it is private. It is the American company Axiom Space which is in charge. And she has very big ambitions for the future.
Meet #Ax2 Mission Specialist Rayyanah Barnawi. She will make history as the first Saudi female astronaut to go to space!
Watch the LIVE launch broadcast starting at 2:00pm ET.
https://t.co/zDx8gS89ha— Axiom Space (@Axiom_Space) May 20, 2023
Founded by a former Nasa, this is the second time that Axiom Space has organized a mission in space, decrypts Simon Rose of RFI’s Science department. If she calls SpaceX for the launch, it is indeed she who concluded the agreements so that her astronauts, private, benefit from the infrastructures of the ISS.
This ten-day mission, which announces others, has the air of space tourism sprinkled with scientific research. The company wants to be the first to have its own private station in orbit. To do this, Axiom has obtained NASA’s agreement to dock its modules with the ISS in the near future. And when it retires by 2030, its modules will be able to be autonomous without detaching.
The project is progressing – the first elements are already under construction – and it is benefiting from the benevolent gaze of the American authorities. After having entrusted the exploration of low Earth orbit to the public sector, they welcome the handover to the private sector, so that NASA can concentrate on more distant exploration; the Moon first, with the Artemis program, in which Axiom is also a stakeholder. NASA entrusted him with the essential task of developing the new spacesuits that astronauts will use.
Meet #Ax2 Mission Specialist Ali Alqarni. He will make history as the second Saudi male astronaut.
Watch the LIVE launch broadcast starting at 2:00PM ET.
https://t.co/EUF13Kragl— Axiom Space (@Axiom_Space) May 20, 2023
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two countries animated by a new space rivalry
Ali Al-Qarni and Rayyanah Barnawi, the two Saudi astronauts who are due to take off this Sunday, May 21 for the international space station, will find another Arab astronaut on board: Sultan al-Neyadi, from the United Arab Emirates. A victory for these two countries embarked on a space race.
His videos have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. Sultan al-Neyadi, on board the ISS since early March, films the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula from space and immortalizes the Arab world, from Iraq to Mauritania. The United Arab Emirates have understood this well: their astronaut on board the ISS is a great communication tool, explains Nicholas Feldmann.
The presence of a woman, this Sunday, in the Saudi crew also owes nothing to chance for a crown prince committed to presenting a modern image of his kingdom. For Saudi Arabia as for the United Arab Emirates, space, a new land of rivalry, is also a field of scientific and technological research.
In Saudi Arabia, a pioneer in the region with the sending of the first Arab astronaut into space in 1985, space research is at the heart of the plan ” Vision 2030 to diversify the oil revenue economy. Over $2 billion has been allocated to the space program. The United Arab Emirates have caught up. In 2021, they entered the very closed club of countries to put a satellite orbiting Mars. A year later, Abu Dhabi failed to land a rover on the Moon. ” Our ambitions are intact “, said the Emirati vice-president last month, announcing that a new lunar mission was in progress.
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