This Year, Saudi Arabia Will Launch Its First Female Astronaut Into Orbit

Saudi

Saudi Arabia will launch its first female astronaut on a space mission, Later this year. Rayyana Barnawi will accompany Ali Al-Qarni on a 10-day voyage to the International Space Station (ISS). They will go there in a SpaceX Dragon as part of a mission by the private space business Axiom Space.
They will be joined by Tennessee-based businessman John Shoffner, who will act as pilot, and Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who will be making her fourth trip to the ISS.
This is not Saudi Arabia's first venture into space. The first Arab Muslim to travel into space was Saudi royal Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz in 1985 as a participant in a US-led space project. In 2018, Saudi Arabia also launched its own space program. Another initiative to send astronauts into space was started by Saudi Arabia in 2022 as a part of Crown Prince Salman's Vision 2030 plan for economic diversification.