UAE announces first astronauts to go to space

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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has selected its first two astronauts to go on a mission to the International Space Station, Dubai's ruler said on Monday.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed AI Maktoum named the new astronauts as Hazza Al Mansouri, 34, and Sultan AI Neyadi, 37.

Writing on Twitter, he said the duo "raise the bar of ambitions for future Emirati generations".

Screenshot of Sheikh Mohammed's twitter announcing the UAE's first astronauts to the International Space Station /Screenshot from Twitter

Sheikh Mohammed, the UAE's vice president and prime minister, last year vowed to send four Emirati astronauts to the space station within five years.

The UAE has its sights set on space with a program worth 20 billion dirhams (about 5.4 billion US dollars), according to Sheikh Mohammed.

The oil-rich Gulf nation has already announced plans to become the first Arab country to send an unmanned probe to orbit Mars by 2021, naming it "Hope".

The astronaut program would make the UAE one of only a handful of states in the Middle East to have sent a person into space, as it looks to make good on a pledge to become a global leader in space exploration.

The first Arab in outer space was Saudi Arabia's Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, who flew on a US shuttle mission in 1985. Two years later, Syrian air force pilot Muhammed Faris spent a week aboard the ex-Soviet Union's Mir space station.

Mansouri and Neyadi, who were among more than 4,000 Emiratis to apply for the program, were chosen after a rigorous six-stage vetting procedure.

According to Khaleej Times, only one of them will take up the mission in space in April 2019, while the other one will serve as a backup.

In the long-term, the UAE says it is planning to build a "Science City" to replicate life on Mars and aims to create the first human settlement on the red planet by 2117.

(Cover: A space mission to Mars map sits on the wall of the UAE Space Agency exhibition stand on the second day of the 14th Dubai Air Show at Dubai World Central (DWC) in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, November 9, 2015. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): AFP