Saudi Arabia to send its First Female Astronaut into Space

• Saudi Arabia will send its first ever woman astronaut on a space mission later this year.
• Rayyana Barnawi will join Ali Al-Qarni on a 10-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
• Another fellow Emirati, Sultan Al-Neyadi will also visit the space station at the end of February 2023.
• The crew will be launched to the ISS by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 
• With this, Saudi Arabia is following the footsteps of UAE which became the the first Arab country to send one of its citizens into space in 2019.
• For Saudi Arabia, this is not the first foray into space. In 1985, Saudi royal Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz took part in a US-organized space mission, becoming the first Arab Muslim to travel into space.
• Saudi Arabia also set up its space program in 2018.

About Saudi Arabia : 

1. King - Salman
2. Capital - Riyadh
3. Currency - Saudi Arabian riyal
4. Official Language    -Arabic
5. Official Religion –Islam