ORLANDO, Fla. — The names of the two astronauts from Saudi Arabia headed up for a short stay on the International Space Station were announced Sunday.
Rayyanah Barnawi, the nation’s first female astronaut, will join Ali AlQarni as two of the four crew for the private Axiom Mission 2 from Axiom Space slated to launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket in a SpaceX Crew Dragon from Kennedy Space Center as early as May.
The two join Axiom Space’s Director of Human Spaceflight and former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who will command the mission, and aviator John Shoffner, who has been named mission pilot. Shoffner and the two seats for the Saudi Space Commission astronauts are paid rides to Axiom Space while Whitson leads the way as an employee in the same way that former NASA astronaut and now Axiom Space employee Michael López-Alegría led three paying customers on the Axiom Mission 1 in 2022.
Each of Ax-1 customers shelled out $55 million. The price of the Ax-2 seats has not been revealed.
The names of the Saudi pair were announced in a press release from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with backup astronauts Mariam Fardous and Ali AlGamdi also training.
“This aims to empower national capabilities in human spaceflight geared toward serving humanity and benefiting from the promising opportunities offered by the space industry, as well as contributing to scientific research in many aspects such as health, sustainability, and space technology,” the release stated.
The two astronauts will become the second and third Saudis to make it to space following Prince Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, who was part of STS-51-G crew on board Space Shuttle Discovery in 1985.
NASA announced it had approved all four crew headed to the station back in January, but the identities of the Saudi astronauts was left to the country to reveal. The quartet plan to stay on board for 10 days during which they will focus on scientific experiments and outreach. Ax-1 ended up spending 17 days on orbit.
The missions are a precursor the company’s plans to build out their own space station beginning with the addition of modules to attach to the ISS before separating by 2030 into their own freestanding station.
“Ax-2 is another critical step along the journey to Axiom Station, a commercial space station in low-Earth orbit, and demonstrates that a private company can operate human missions together with NASA to carry on the legacy and achievements of the ISS,” said Axiom Space President and CEO Michael Suffredini in a press release. “Axiom Space’s private astronaut missions help grow the space economy, expand access to space which benefits all of humanity and provides our team with the ideal training needed to build and operate a commercial space station.”
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