Two Saudi astronauts, one being the first Arab woman astronaut to enter space, set foot on the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked at the International Space Station (ISS) at 5.12 pm UAE time.
Thirty-three-old Rayyanah Barnawi became the first Arab as well as Saudi woman to travel to space on Monday.
She was accompanied by fellow astronaut Ali Al Qarni. The duo are a part of Axiom Mission 2 which includes commander Peggy Whitson and pilot John Shoffner.
The duo will spend the next eight days at ISS.
They were received by UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi who is currently on a six-month mission – the first long-duration space mission in the Arab world.
It is also the first time three Arab astronauts will work together on 14 science experiments 400 kilometres above Earth.
Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2) lifted off at 5:37 pm EDT on Sunday (3:07 a.m. Monday IST) from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The astronauts are expected to depart the space station on May 30.
