Saudi Arabia will send its first female astronaut on a space mission later this year, the latest step in the country’s effort to shed its conservative image.
The International Space Station (ISS) mission of Rayyana Barnawi and Ali Al-Qarni will take place “during the second quarter of 2023,” according to the official Saudi Press Agency.
The space journey would “launch from the USA,” according to the agency, and the astronauts “will join the crew of the AX-2 space mission.”
The oil-rich country will be following in the footsteps of the neighboring United Arab Emirates, which made history in 2019 by being the first Arab nation to send a person into space.
Hazzaa al-Mansoori, an astronaut at the time, was on the ISS for eight days. Later this month, Sultan al-Neyadi, another fellow Emirati, will travel.
The “Sultan of Space,” 41-year-old Neyadi, will launch for the ISS atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and become the first Arab astronaut to spend six months in space.
Through a variety of projects, Gulf monarchies have been trying to diversify their heavily reliant on energy economies.
Crown Prince working to restructure the country
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto prince of Saudi Arabia, has also been working to restructure the country in an effort to shed its reputation for austerity.
Women now have the freedom to drive and travel abroad without a male chaperone since his ascent to power in 2017, and their share of the workforce has increased from 17% to 37% since 2016.
However, Saudi Arabia’s venture into space is hardly the first.
The first Arab Muslim to travel into space was Saudi royal Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, an air force pilot who participated in a US-organized space mission in 1985.
In 2018, Saudi Arabia set up a space programme and last year launched another to send astronauts into space, all part of Prince Salman’s Vision 2030 agenda for economic diversification.
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