नवीनतम
SpaceX launches US, Russia, UAE astronauts to space station
NEW DELHI [Maha Media]: SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA on Thursday, including the first person from the Arab world going up for an extended monthslong stay.
The Falcon rocket bolted from Kennedy Space Center shortly after midnight, illuminating the night sky as it headed up the East Coast..
Nearly 80 spectators from the United Arab Emirates watched from the launch site as astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi — only the second Emirati to fly to space — blasted off on his six-month mission. Half a world away in Dubai and elsewhere across the UAE, schools and offices planned to broadcast the launch live. Also riding the Dragon capsule that's due at the space station on Friday: NASA's Stephen Bowen, a retired Navy submariner who logged three space shuttle flights, and Warren “Woody” Hoburg, a former research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and space newbie, and Andrei Fedyaev, a space rookie who's retired from the Russian Air Force. The first attempt to launch them was called off Monday at the last minute because of a clogged filter in the engine ignition system. They will replace a U.S.-Russian-Japanese crew that has been up there since October.
The other station residents are two Russians and an American whose six-month stay was doubled, until September, after their Soyuz capsule sprang a leak. A replacement Soyuz arrived last weekend.
Al-Neyadi, a communications engineer, served as backup for the first Emirati astronaut, Hazzaa al-Mansoori, who rode a Russian rocket to the space station in 2019 for a weeklong visit. The oil-rich federation paid for al-Neyadi's seat on the SpaceX flight.
