Dubai: UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi, along with other International Space Station crew members, rolled out the welcome mat on Monday for two Saudi visitors, including the Kingdom's first female astronaut.
Rayyanah Barnawi, a scientist who became the first Saudi woman to go into space, and Ali Al Qarni, a trained fighter pilot, are the first two people from their country to go to the orbital outpost.
SpaceX's chartered flight arrived at the orbiting lab less than 16 hours after blasting off from Florida. The four guests will spend just over a week there, before returning to Earth in their capsule.
The team also includes Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who will be making her fourth flight to the ISS, and John Shoffner, a businessman from Tennessee who is serving as pilot.
The 270-mile-high (430-kilometer-high) docking puts the space station population at 11, representing not only Saudi Arabia and the US, but the United Arab Emirates and Russia.
“This shows how space brings everyone together,” said Saudi Arabia's first female astronaut, Rayyanah Barnawi, a stem cell researcher. “I'm going to live this experience to the max.”
Saudi fighter pilot Ali Al Qarni dedicated the visit to everyone back home. “This mission is not just for me and Rayyanah. This mission is also for the people with ambition and dreams.”
"It was a lovely ride," said mission commander Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who made the voyage three times in the past, adding: "It was the softest docking I've ever felt."
This mission, named Ax-2, is the second fully private mission to visit the Space Station, following a first in April 2022. This mission is aimed at "conducting scientific and research experiments that can contribute to strengthening the Kingdom's position globally in the field of space exploration."
Experiments
SpaceX's chartered flight arrived at the orbiting lab less than 16 hours after blasting off from Florida. The four guests will spend just over a week there, before returning to Earth in their capsule.
The astronauts plan to spend eight days aboard the orbiting laboratory, carrying out a full mission comprised of science, outreach and commercial activities.
Saudi Arabia's involvement in the mission is also to expand space science education in the Kingdom. Saudi male and female students will participate in scientific experiments conducted on the ISS.
This shows how space brings everyone together. I'm going to live this experience to the max.
The team will carry out 14 experiments focused on "human research, cell sciences, and cloud seeding experiments in the microgravity environment".
One of them involves studying the behavior of stem cells in zero gravity.
They will join seven others already on board the ISS: three Russians, three Americans and Emirati astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi, who was the first Arab national to go on a spacewalk last month.
This mission is not just for me and Rayyanah. This mission is also for people with ambition and dreams.
The mission to the ISS will be the second in partnership with ISS-key holder NASA by Axiom Space, a private space company, which offers the rare voyages for sums that run into the millions of dollars.
The company oversees training the astronauts, chartering their means of transport and ensuring the smooth management of their stay.
Axiom Space carried out its first private astronaut mission to the ISS in April 2022, sending three businessmen and former astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria to spend 17 days in orbit as part of Ax-1.
Some astronauts on the ISS at the time said they had to take time out of their day - precious in zero gravity - to take care of the space tourists.
"My time is actually a lot less constrained than Mike Lopez-Alegria's time was on the first mission," said Whitson. "I'll be available to help the crew members a lot more as they need assistance."
Private space stations
For Axiom Space, these missions are a first step toward an ambitious goal: the construction of its own space station, with the first module expected to launch in 2025.
The station would at first be attached to the ISS before separating and orbiting independently.
NASA plans to retire the ISS around 2030 and to instead send astronauts to private stations, which will also host their own clients, leading the US space agency to encourage the development of programs by several companies.
Russia recently agreed to extend its use of the ISS until 2028, having threatened an earlier pullout last year as ties unraveled between the Kremlin and the West over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
The other international partners - Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency - have committed themselves, like the United States, to continue operations until 2030.
