18.06.2023

Mohammed Al Mulla and Noura Al Matrooshi will graduate from the Nasa Astronaut Programme in early 2024

Even as astronaut Sultan AlNeyadi is continuing his historic space mission at the International Space Station (ISS), his counterparts have continued training hard here on earth.

As part of Nasa's 2021 astronaut candidate class training programme, Emirati astronauts Nora Al Matrooshi and Mohammad Al Mulla recently completed a series of rigorous training exercises in the USA.

A video showing highlights of their training regimen was shared by Nasa, documenting the duo's resilience as they undertook various challenges, from survival training at Alabama's Fort Novosel to mastering the art of suiting up at Nasa’s Johnson Space Centre's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.

The training program also included getting acquainted with the field of geology, and others.

The Emirati astronauts had also recently visited the Marshall Space Flight Centre. During the visit, they had the opportunity to meet with the Centre’s leadership and learn more about the missions, programs, and projects at Marshall. They also went to the V20 Thermal Vacuum Chamber, which is currently being used to simulate lunar environments and plume surface interaction for landing scenario planning for the Moon.

Al Matrooshi and Al Mulla, who are part of the second batch of the UAE Astronaut Programme, were selected in the 2021 class of astronaut candidates alongside 10 of their NASA classmates who make up the US space agency's 23rd group of astronaut candidates since the Mercury 7 were chosen in 1959. The 10 candidates were carefully selected from a pool of over 12,000 applicants from across the USA for the Nasa astronaut corps and are currently undergoing candidacy program training at Nasa’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston. They are set to graduate in early 2024 as flight-eligible astronauts.

Once they graduate, the Group 23 members will become eligible for a variety of assignments, including performing research on the ISS, launching on commercial spacecraft to commercial outposts in low Earth orbit and embarking on missions into deep space.

A flying enthusiast, Mohammed became the youngest pilot in Dubai Police after obtaining a commercial pilot’s license at the age of 19. He also became the youngest trainer at the organization after getting his flight instructor license at 28 years.

Noura is a mechanical engineer who worked as a piping engineer at the UAE's National Petroleum Construction Company. In 2022, she made it to Forbes list of 5 Arab women who made history by becoming the Arab world's first female astronaut.

The UAE Astronaut Programme is one of the projects managed by MBRSC under the UAE’s National Space Programme and funded by the ICT Fund of the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA), which aims to support research and development in the ICT sector in the UAE and promote the country’s integration on the global stage.

Quelle: Khaleej Times

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UAE's Nora Al Matrooshi to graduate from Nasa's astronaut training programme next year

Nora Al Matrooshi and Mohammed Al Mulla from the UAE are featured in Nasa's 2023 astronaut class photos. Photo: Anil Menon Twitter

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.

Maj Al Mansouri and Dr Al Neyadi completed survival training in Russia in 2018.

They spent a year at the Gagarin Astronaut Training Centre in Moscow, which included days in the wilderness in freezing temperatures.

Ms Al Matrooshi and Mr Al Mulla also explored the V20 Thermal Vacuum Chamber at the Marshall Space Flight Centre in Alabama, which is currently being used to simulate lunar environments.

At Nasa's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston, they learned how to wear a spacewalking suit, which weighs about 130kg.

The two trainee astronauts will also learn how to fly T-38 supersonic jets and about the systems of the space station.

Future space missions

It is not clear if any space mission has been secured yet for the astronauts after they graduate.

The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, which oversees the country's astronaut programme, said they would send astronauts to space every three to five years.

Maj Al Mansouri went on an eight-day mission to the ISS in 2019 and Dr Al Neyadi arrived at the station on March 3 for a six-month stay.

But, as space agencies look to retire the ISS by the end of this decade, Emirati astronauts will probably have a future on private space stations and flights to the Moon under Nasa's Artemis programme, if the UAE secures a deal with the US.

Companies like Blue Origin and Axiom Space have plans to build stations in low-Earth orbit, with paying customers welcome aboard.

While government-run agencies like Nasa have set their sights on crewed missions to the Moon and beyond.

Quelle: The National