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UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi in SpaceX Crew-6 suit

The UAE astronaut will serve as a mission specialist on the SpaceX Crew-6 mission.
Photo credit: MBRSC’s Twitter

Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) has released photos of Sultan Al Neyadi in a spacesuit or Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) together with three other members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 that will embark on a six-month mission to the International Space Station (ISS) by Spring of 2023.

Al Neyadi was selected among several Emirati astronauts to be the first Arab astronaut to engage in a long-term space mission to the ISS. He will serve as a mission specialist on the SpaceX Crew-6 mission.

The photos were taken during a training session at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

MBRSC tweeted: “As part of the preparations for Nasa’s SpaceX Crew-6 … mission to the ISS, the crew visited SpaceX headquarters in California and appeared in their spacesuits for the first time.”

Aside from Al Neyadi, the other members of the SpaceX Crew-6 are NASA commander Stephen Bowen, pilot William Hoburg, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.

During the mission, Al Neyadi will conduct many in-depth and advanced scientific experiments as part of the UAE Astronaut Programme.

Crew-6 will be the sixth operational astronaut mission that SpaceX flies to the ISS for NASA.

With the mission, the UAE will become the 11th country in history to send a long-term mission to space.