The Worldwide House Station rolled out the welcome mat Monday for 2 Saudi guests, together with the dominion’s first feminine astronaut.
SpaceX’s chartered flight arrived on the orbiting lab lower than 16 hours after blasting off from Florida. The 4 visitors will spend simply over every week there, earlier than returning to Earth of their capsule.
The 270-mile-high (430-kilometer-high) docking places the space station inhabitants at 11, representing not solely Saudi Arabia and the U.S., however the United Arab Emirates and Russia.
Saudi Arabia’s authorities is choosing up the multimillion-dollar tab for its first feminine astronaut, Rayyanah Barnawi, a stem cell researcher, and fighter pilot Ali al-Qarni.
John Shoffner, a Knoxville, Tennessee, businessman who began a automobile racing workforce, is paying his personal method. Retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is their chaperone. She now works for Axiom House, the Houston firm that organized the 10-day journey, its second to the space station.
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The crew of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the Crew Dragon spacecraft, from left, Saudi Arabian astronaut Rayyanah Barnawi, commandeer Peggy Whitson, pilot John Shoffner and Saudi Arabian astronaut Ali al-Qarni arrive on the Kennedy House Middle in Cape Canaveral, Fla., earlier than their launch to the Worldwide House Station, Sunday, Could 21, 2023. Credit score: AP Picture/John Raoux
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the Dragon capsule and a crew of 4 non-public astronauts, lifts off from Pad 39A on the Kennedy House Middle in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Sunday, Could 21, 2023. Credit score: AP Picture/John Raoux
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Saudi Arabian astronaut Rayyanah Barnawi waves to household and buddies as she arrives on the Kennedy House Middle in Cape Canaveral, Fla., for a scheduled launch Sunday, Could 21, 2023. Credit score: AP Picture/John Raoux
The corporate cited ticket prices of $55 million every for final 12 months’s non-public journey by three businessmen, however will not say how a lot the most recent seats value.
Just one different Saudi has flown earlier than in space, a prince who rode on NASA’s shuttle Discovery in 1985.
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House station welcomes two Saudi guests, together with kingdom’s first feminine astronaut (2023, Could 22)
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