Sultan Al Neyadi Set To Become First Arab To Perform Spacewalk

UAE Astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi will become the first Arab to perform a seven-hour-long spacewalk on Friday.

Dr. Al Neyadi is expected to make the historic seven-hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS) for an important maintenance assignment, The National reported.

He will be accompanied by NASA Astronaut Stephen Bowen during the spacewalk scheduled on Friday at 9:15 a.m. ET. Dr. Al Neyadi and Bowen will venture outside the ISS at about 5:15 pm GST that will be available for live broadcast on NASA's website.

The two astronauts will perform tasks such as retrieving and relocating foot restraints that astronauts can use during future spacewalks, preparing a part of the station for a future solar array installation and retrieving a piece of communication hardware, the outlet reported.

The pair is expected to spend around six and a half hours continuing the installation of hardware to support future power system upgrades to the ISS, Gizmodo reported.

"We're trying to get all the cables ready and trying to pat down some insulation that's not exactly in the right configuration the way we want it," Dina Contella, ISS program operations integration manager, said in the Gizmodo report. "Just generally preparing things like equipment and staging equipment in the perfect location so that the June spacewalks can go off as planned."

Aside from performing maintenance work outside the ISS, the astronauts are also expected to retrieve the Radio Frequency Group (RFG) - a communications antenna that is set to be returned to Earth.

Dr. Al Neyadi's spacewalk will make UAE the 10th country with a spacewalking astronaut. He is part of the March 2 SpaceX's Crew-6 mission following his selection by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre. He is the fourth Arab to go on a space mission and the first Arab to go on a long-duration mission, Gizmodo said.

Salem Al Marri, director general of the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai, told The National that Dr. Al Neyadi was selected by NASA to perform the spacewalk.

"He's been training since 2018, and training with Nasa since 2020, so he's proven his capabilities," he said in The National report.