Saudi Arabia's first astronaut leaves for space station

Category : Science and Tech Published on: May 24 2023

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A private mission to the International Space Station (ISS) hosted by Axiom Space began from Florida on May 21, taking two Saudi astronauts to an orbital laboratory for the first time.
Breast cancer researcher Raynah Barnawi is the first Saudi woman to travel in space and her partner on the mission, Saudi Ali al-Karni, is a fighter pilot.
The crew of Axiom Mission 2 (AX-2) took off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, the southern state of Florida.
This mission is not Saudi Arabia's first attempt at space.
In 1985, an Air Force pilot, Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, participated in a space flight hosted by the US.
Saudi Arabia established the Saudi Space Commission in 2018 and launched a program last year to send astronauts to space.