Saudi Arabia will send its first ever woman astronaut on a space mission later this year. Rayyana Barnawi will join Ali Al-Qarni on a 10-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS), the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said adding that they will fly to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft as part of a mission by the private space company Axiom Space.
Saudi Arabia will set history by sending its first woman Astronaut, Rayyana Barnawi to the Space Station this year. The country takes its first-ever move by trying to change its conservative image. The first-ever woman astronaut from Saudi Arabia will be going to space this year. It can be seen as a symbol of ameliorating the old conventional system of beliefs.
Along with them will be Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who will be making her fourth flight to the ISS, and John Shoffner, a businessman from Tennessee who will serve as pilot, the agency informed. The crew will be launched to the ISS by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With this, Saudi Arabia is following the footsteps of UAE which became the the first Arab country to send one of its citizens into space in 2019.
This come as Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has introduced many reforms to change the kingdom’s conservative image. The steps include women being allowed to drive and travel abroad without a male guardian.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman introduces various reforms in order to change the conservative perspective of the country. Efforts are being made to allow women to drive and travel abroad without a male guardian.
This is a very positive step towards the overall development of the nation. Apart from this, women’s proportion in the workforce has elevated since 2016 reportedly from 17% to 37%.
However, Saudi Arabia’s expedition into space is not of its first kind. In 1985, the oil-rich country sent the country’s royal Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz along with an air force pilot on a US-organised mission. At that time it became the first Arab Muslim country to travel into space. In 2018 as well, the country launched a space program and sent astronauts into space last year as part of Prince Salman’s Vision 2030 agenda for economic expansion.
