Hazza Al Mansouri becomes the first ever Emirati Astronaut to venture into
space. UAE’s mission to the International Space Station was carried out on board
the Soyuz MS- 15 Space Craft
Hazza Al Mansouri was born on the 13th of December 1983 in the Abu Dhabi
suburb of Al Wahtba. He graduated from Khalid Bin Zayed air college in 2004. He
soon joined the armed forces and later became a military pilot.
In 2016, he was selected to train to be an air-show pilot. In 2017, he took part in
the Dubai Airshow 2017 and participated in different shows in a number of cities
in the UAE to mark the UAE National Day on 2 December 2017
On 3 September 2018, Sheikh Mohammed tweeted: “We announced today our
first astronauts to the International Space Station: Hazza Al Mansouri and Sultan
Al Nayad.
Al Mansouri headed to space with Russian commander Oleg Skripochka and Nasa
astronaut Jessica Meir. Their launch took place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan. Reserve Emirati astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi was also at Baikonur
with Russian commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Thomas Marshburn from Nasa
At exactly 5.57pm local time today, the FG rocket took off from Baikonur,
powering the Soyuz spacecraft that carried a 3-member crew, including
Al Mansouri.
