Today's Edition
AMNA AL KETBI (DUBAI)
Major space missions await Emirati mechanical engineer Nora Al Matrooshi, who will become the UAE’s first female astronaut when she graduates with her counterpart Mohammed Al Mulla, a former Dubai Police helicopter pilot, and 11 American astronaut candidates from NASA’s training programme on March 5.
On their graduation, the two Emirati astronauts will become eligible for space missions, including to the International Space Station, as well as any other US-led missions to the Moon planned under NASA’s Artemis programme.
Al Matrooshi was excited about future missions and said that spacewalking exercises and wearing the spacesuit “made her feel like she is truly an astronaut”.
Since starting their training in 2021 at the Johnson Space Center, the candidates have done a series of courses, including land survival, flight training, simulated spacewalks and geology field training.
They completed their spacewalk training in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, by spending 6-7 hours under water, which is equivalent to one hour, during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station.
They also flew on a T-6 trainer aircraft with the US Navy at the Pensacola base in Florida, and conducted geology experiments in Arizona. The objective was to learn to draw a geological map of both the Moon and Mars, and to study weather conditions in space. They later tracked volcano activity and how to use specialised devices to understand the surfaces of the planets and the effects of different weather conditions on them.
The Emirati astronauts underwent specialised spacecraft simulation to understand space vehicles. A V20 thermal vacuum chamber, at the Marshall Mission Space Centre, is used to simulate lunar environments and practice landing scenarios on the Moon’s surface, as well as studying rock structures. The astronaut candidates compared rock formations, identified geological terrain and volcanic rocks in Taos, New Mexico.
The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory helped them understand the extent of movement and vision in an space suit developed by NASA that weighs 200 kg for use during missions to the Moon. The aim was to evaluate the new design of the suit, which was developed keeping in mind the need for astronauts to transport equipment on the lunar surface, and to carry out other tasks, such as collecting core samples.
The crew’s ability to work and move around the South Pole of the Moon in future missions was also tested. Survival training exercises were conducted in Alabama, while specialised tests on the robotic arm Canadarm 2 were conducted at the Canadian Space Agency.
