SpaceX Launches Ax-2 Mission with Saudi Astronauts, Including Nation’s 1st Woman in Space

Saudi Arabia’s first astronauts in many years rocketed towards the International Space Station on a chartered multimillion-dollar flight Sunday.

SpaceX launched the ticket-holding crew, led by a retired NASA astronaut now working for the corporate that organized the journey. Also on board: a U.S. businessman who now owns a sports activities automobile racing group.

The 4 ought to attain the area station of their capsule Monday morning; they’ll spend simply over every week there earlier than returning dwelling with a splashdown off the Florida coast.

Sponsored by the Saudi Arabian authorities, Rayyanah Barnawi, a stem cell researcher, turned the primary girl from the dominion to go to area. She was joined by Ali al-Qarni, a fighter pilot with the Royal Saudi Air Force.

They’re the primary from their nation to journey a rocket since a Saudi prince launched aboard shuttle Discovery in 1985. In a quirk of timing, they’ll be greeted on the station by an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates.

“This is a dream come true for everyone,” Barnawi mentioned earlier than the flight. “Just being able to understand that this is possible. If me and Ali can do it, then they can do it, too.”

Rounding out the visiting crew: Knoxville, Tennessee’s John Shoffner, former driver and proprietor of a sports activities automobile racing group that competes in Europe, and chaperone Peggy Whitson, the station’s first feminine commander who holds the U.S. document for many accrued time in area: 665 days and counting.

It’s the second non-public flight to the area station organized by Houston-based Axiom Space. The first was final yr by three businessmen, with one other retired NASA astronaut. The firm plans to start out including its personal rooms to the station in one other few years, finally eradicating them to kind a stand-alone outpost out there for rent.

Axiom gained’t say how a lot Shoffner and Saudi Arabia are paying for the deliberate 10-day mission. The firm had beforehand cited a ticket value of $55 million every.

NASA’s newest value listing exhibits per-person, per-day costs of $2,000 for meals and as much as $1,500 for sleeping baggage and different gear. Need to get your stuff to the area station upfront? Figure roughly $10,000 per pound ($20,000 per kilogram), the identical payment for trashing it afterward. Need your gadgets again intact? Double the value.

At least the e-mail and video hyperlinks are free.

The friends could have entry to many of the station as they conduct experiments, {photograph} Earth and chat with schoolchildren again dwelling, demonstrating how kites fly in area when hooked up to a fan.

After many years of shunning area tourism, NASA now embraces it with two non-public missions deliberate a yr. The Russian Space Agency has been doing it, on and off, for many years.

“Our job is to expand what we do in low-Earth orbit across the globe,” mentioned NASA’s area station program supervisor Joel Montalbano.

(This story has not been edited by News18 workers and is printed from a syndicated news company feed – Associated Press)