As the Gulf country rapidly expands into the space sector to broaden its economy, the United Arab Emirates has selected the first Arab woman to train as an astronaut.
Emirati national Nora al-Matrooshi, a 27-year-old mechanical engineering graduate currently working at Abu Dhabi’s National Petroleum Construction Company, will join NASA’s 2021 Astronaut Candidate Class in the United States.
The UAE is utilising its space programme to develop its scientific and technological abilities and decrease its reliance on oil.
Space was her passion since childhood… Nora AlMatrooshi, the new member of the UAE Astronaut Programme.#UAEAstronauts #UAEAstronautProgramme@Astronaut_Nora @TheUAETRA pic.twitter.com/TEW5uip0EK
— MBR Space Centre (@MBRSpaceCentre) April 10, 2021
In February a UAE inquiry reached the orbit of the planet Mars, the Arab world’s first interplanetary explorers. The UAE has plans to launch a satellite rover by 2024 and even a vision for a Mars settlement by 2117.
Matrooshi will be accompanied by another Emirati, Mohammed al-Mulla, making a total of four people under the UAE Astronaut Programme. They include Hazza al-Mansouri who became the first Emirati in space in 2019 when he flew to the International Space Station.
Nora was one of 4,300 aspirants judged on scientific abilities, education and practical experience, and then on physical, psychological and medical evaluations, Dubai’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) said.
The UAE launched a National Space Programme in 2017 to develop regional expertise. Its population of 9.4 million, most of whom are foreign workers, lacks the scientific and industrial base of the big space-faring nations.
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