UAE's Nora Al Matrooshi to Graduate from Nasa's Astronaut Training program Next Year

The first female Emirati trainee astronaut is set to graduate from a Nasa program early next year.

The first female Emirati trainee astronaut is set to graduate from a Nasa programme early next year.

It means she'll become eligible to join US-led missions to space.

Nora Al Matrooshi and her colleague Mohammed Al Mulla have been training at Nasa's Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, since January last year.

They are the UAE's latest trainee astronauts who will follow in the footsteps of Hazza Al Mansouri, the first Emirati in space, and Sultan Al Neyadi, who is in the middle of the Arab world's longest space mission aboard the International Space Station.

"As part of Nasa's 2021 astronaut candidate class training programme, Emirati astronauts Nora Al Mastrooshi and Mohammed Al Mulla recently completed a series of rigorous training exercises in the USA," a Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre representative said on Friday.

"They are set to graduate in early 2024 as flight-eligible astronauts."

Maj Al Mansouri and Dr Al Neyadi graduated from the programme last year.

Ms Matrooshi was the first Arab woman to be selected for an astronaut corps in 2020, but Saudi Arabia's Rayyanah Barnawi became the first Arab woman to go on a space mission when she launched on an eight-day trip to the ISS last month.

Surviving in the Wilderness

A video released by Nasa on Thursday shows mechanical engineer Ms Al Matrooshi and former Dubai Police helicopter pilot Mr Al Mulla during their training sessions.

They have carried out a survival training course in a remote forest at the US Army Aviation Centre of Excellence in Fort Rucker, Alabama, where they learned how to build fires, make shelters and gather food and water, alongside their Nasa colleagues.

Source:- The National News