DUBAI: Emirati astronaut Sultan Al-Neyadi on Tuesday gave a live address from the International Space Station (ISS) to UAE leaders including Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, as well as fellow compatriots back on Earth, describing his initial days aboard the space station.
Al-Neyadi, the UAE’s second man to travel into space after Hazza Al-Mansouri’s eight-day sojourn on the ISS in 2019, said the newly arrived crew was coping well with microgravity in the space station and their schedules were crowded since they arrived.
“There are many experiments that the UAE will take part in,” he said.
“We also have a number of experiments from the UAE, to be conducted by the UAE [which] will hold the UAE fingerprint. We are also subjects in these experiments: astronauts in microgravity.”
The 41-year-old arrived on the ISS last Friday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, whose launch was earlier scuttled after technical issues, and will spend six months there to take part in more than 200 experiments being conducted by Nasa and 19 others involving UAE universities.
His space voyage coincides with Ramadan, when Muslims typically fast from dawn to sunset.
“I’m in the definition of a traveler, and we can actually break (our) fast. It’s not compulsory,” Neyadi said during an earlier press conference, explaining how he was exempted.
“Actually fasting is not compulsory if you’re feeling not well,” he said.
“So in that regard, anything that can jeopardize the mission, or maybe put the crew members in a risk, we’re actually allowed to eat sufficient food.
“It is yet to be announced or shown, but definitely we have a lot of stuff going on. I want to share some Emirati food on board. I love dates. I’m going to take dates, and hopefully I’m going to share this with everybody, especially in Ramadan,” the Emirati astronaut added.
