Look : UAE astronauts train for spacewalk at NASA

Hazza Al Mansouri and Sultan Al Neyadi trained for long-haul space missions

Last updated: March 15, 2021 | 16:26

Compiled by Devadasan K P, Picture Editor

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Emirati astronauts Hazzaa Al Mansoori and Sultan AlNeyadi are in the thick of their training at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, in preparation for future space missions, including space walks.

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Hazza Al Mansouri and Sultan Al Neyadi were shown underwater at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL), doing manoeuvres mimicking the environment in space in a video released by Dubai Media Office.

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Training at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, is “one of the best methods to prepare astronauts for spacewalks", says the video. Neutral buoyancy is the equal tendency of an object to sink or float, it explained.

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Al Neyadi prepares to go underwater. The laboratory is used to develop flight procedures, verify hardware compatibility, train astronauts, refine spacewalks procedures.

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Operated by Nasa, it is located near Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

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NBL is an astronaut training facility, featuring a large indoor pool of water designed to provide neutral buoyancy to simulate the microgravity that astronauts would experience during spaceflight.

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Sultan Al Neyadi wears his EVA suit for spacewalk training in the indoor pool.

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Al Mansoori and Al Neyadi did the complex underwater training – which lasted for six hours – wearing heavy space suits while making their way at the NBL that contains full-scale mock-ups of the International Space Station (ISS) modules and payloads.

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The 6.2 million gallon tank includes mock-ups of International Space Station modules and other training materials.

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The space shuttle at the Space Center Houston, Texas.

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