UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi created history early this morning as he embarked on a 25-hour journey to the International Space Station (ISS).
The 41-year-old is only the second person from the country to fly to space and the first to launch from US soil as part of a long-duration space station team.
Liftoff of Crew-6! pic.twitter.com/BucEYeIIFe
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 2, 2023
UAE's first-ever astronaut launched to orbit in 2019 aboard a Russian spacecraft.
The SpaceX launch vehicle, consisting of a Falcon 9 rocket topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule called Endeavour, lifted off at 12.34am EST (0534 GMT) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
A live NASA webcast showed the 25-story-tall spacecraft ascending from the launch tower as its nine Merlin engines roared to life in billowing clouds of vapor and a reddish fireball that lit up the pre-dawn sky.
The launch was expected to accelerate the Crew Dragon to an orbital velocity of 17,500 miles per hour (28,164 kph), more than 22 times the speed of sound.
Key milestones for the Crew-6 launch (timings in ET) pic.twitter.com/MaR45rvSba
— Sarwat Nasir (@SarwatNasir) March 2, 2023
The flight came 72 hours after an initial launch attempt was scrubbed in the final minutes of countdown early on Monday due to a clog in the flow of engine-ignition fluid.
NASA said the problem was fixed by replacing a clogged filter and purging the system.
The trip to the International Space Station (ISS), a laboratory orbiting some 250 miles (420 km) above Earth, is expected to take nearly 25 hours, with rendezvous planned for about 1.15am EST (0615 GMT) on Friday as the crew begins a six-month science mission in microgravity.
Designated Crew 6, the mission marks the sixth long-term ISS team that NASA has flown aboard SpaceX since the private rocket venture founded by Elon Musk began sending American astronauts to orbit in May 2020.
The latest ISS crew is led by mission commander Stephen Bowen, 59, a onetime US Navy submarine officer who has logged more than 40 days in orbit as a veteran of three space shuttle flights and seven spacewalks.
Fellow NASA astronaut Warren "Woody" Hoburg, 37, an engineer and commercial aviator designated as the Crew 6 pilot, is making his first spaceflight.
Rounding out the four-man Crew 6 is Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, 42, who like astronaut Al Neyadi is an engineer and spaceflight rookie designated as a mission specialist for the team.
The Crew 6 team will be welcomed aboard the space station by seven current ISS occupants - three US NASA crew members, including commander Nicole Aunapu Mann, the first Native American woman to fly to space, along with three Russians and a Japanese astronaut.
The ISS, about the length of a football field, has been continuously operated for more than two decades years by a US-Russian-led consortium that includes Canada, Japan and 11 European countries.
During the course of their mission, the astronauts will conduct over 200 science experiments and technology demonstrations in areas such as life and physical sciences to advanced materials, technology development, in-space production applications, and student-led research.
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