Saudi Arabia’s first female astronaut to go on a space mission this year

Saudi female astronaut Rayna Barnawi will join fellow Saudi Ali Al-Qarni on a 10-day mission International Space Station (ISS) this year.

Barnawi and al-Karni will fly to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft as part of a mission by private space company Axiom Space.

The X-2 will be launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Axiom Space performed its first private astronaut mission to the ISS in April 2022, with four private astronauts spending 17 days in orbit.

In 2019, Saudi’s neighbor the United Arab Emirates became the first Arab country to send one of its citizens into space.

Astronaut Hazza al-Mansoori spent eight days on the ISS. Another fellow Emirati, Sultan Al-Neyadi will also visit the space station in February this year.

Affectionately called the “Sultan of Space”, Neyadi will become the first Arab astronaut to spend six months in space when he flies to the ISS on a Falcon 9 rocket.

In particular, Saudi de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been trying to shake off the kingdom’s hardline image by pushing for reforms.

Since 2017 during her rule, Saudi women have been allowed to drive and travel abroad without a male escort Guardian, Furthermore, the proportion of women in the workforce has more than doubled since 2016, from 17% to 37%.

However, Saudi Arabia’s foray into space is not its first. In 1985, the country’s crown prince, Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, sent an Air Force pilot on a US-organized mission to the oil-rich country. It became the first Arab Muslim country to travel into space.

Years later in 2018, the country established a space program and last year launched another to send astronauts into space as part of Prince Salman’s Vision 2030 agenda for economic diversification.