UAE astronauts Hazzaa and Sultan complete one year of training at NASA

Dubai: UAE pioneer astronauts Hazzaa AlMansoori and Sultan AlNeyadi have successfully completed their first year of training at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Johnson Space Center.

The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) shared on Wednesday photos of AlMansoori and AlNeyadi completing a 6-hours underwater training in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL)

“They (UAE astronauts) passed their evaluations which included using the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), the maintenance of the International Space Station and the Incapacitated Crew Rescue (ICR),” MBRSC said.

Neutral buoyancy is the equal tendency of an object to sink or float. NBL is used to develop flight procedures, verify hardware compatibility, train astronauts, and refine spacewalks procedures.

The complex and physically demanding training can is used to simulate space walks outside the International Space Station (ISS)

Al Mansoori and AlNeyadi did the complex underwater training wearing heavy space suits while making their way at the NBL that contains full-scale mock-ups of the ISS modules and payloads.