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First UAE astronaut to travel to orbital outpost aboard Russian Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft

In June 2018, Roscosmos and the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center signed an agreement on the flight by the first UAE astronaut to the ISS
UAE astronaut Hazza al-Mansouri Sergei Savostyanov/TASS
UAE astronaut Hazza al-Mansouri
© Sergei Savostyanov/TASS

BAIKONUR COSMODROME /Kazakhstan/, September 25. /TASS/. The first representative of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will travel to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft that will blast off from the Baikonur spaceport on Wednesday, the Roscosmos State Space Corporation told TASS.

"The launch of a Soyuz-FG carrier rocket with the manned Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft and the new expedition’s crew is scheduled for 4:57 p.m. Moscow time from the first launch pad (the Gagarin Start). The Soyuz is set to dock with the orbital station at 10:45 p.m. Moscow time on the same day," Roscosmos specified.

Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin and representatives of NASA and the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center (UAE) will observe the space launch.

Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and the first UAE astronaut, Hazza al-Mansouri, will travel to the orbital outpost aboard the manned Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft.

The backup crew approved by Russia’s state commission on Tuesday comprises Russian cosmonaut Sergei Ryzhikov, NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn and UAE astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi.

In June 2018, Roscosmos and the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center signed an agreement on the flight by the first UAE astronaut to the ISS. The two astronaut candidates — military pilot Hazza al-Mansouri and network security engineer Sultan al-Neyadi — arrived at Russia’s Cosmonaut Training Center in the Star City near Moscow in September 2018.

Last launch of Soyuz-FG

Russia will launch the Soyuz-FG carrier rocket for the last time. Subsequently, all manned Soyuz spaceships will travel to the ISS aboard Soyuz-2.1a carrier rockets. The manned Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft is set to dock with the space station six hours after the liftoff, i.e. at 10:45 p.m. Moscow time.

Hazza al-Mansouri will return to Earth on October 3 together with Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague. In addition to Hague and Ovchinin, Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan and Christina Koch and astronaut Luca Parmitano (Italy) from the European Space Agency are currently working on the space station.

Overall, the crew of the ISS-61/62 expedition is set to carry out over 50 experiments under the program of applied research, including three new experiments. Seven studies will be carried out in the automatic mode without the crew’s participation. The cosmonauts and astronauts will also be handling Progress MS resupply ships.