The first astronaut from the United Arab Emirates as part of the Russian mission will leave for the ISS in September 2019.
The Russian state news agency Sputnik reported that the Russian space mission, which will include the first astronaut from the UAE, will start on September 25, 2019. A crew of three will spend eight days in space and will return to Earth on October 3, 2019.
In accordance with the agreement signed with the Russian space agency Roscosmos, the first cosmonaut from the UAE was supposed to be in Earth orbit in April 2019, but the emergency launch of the Soyuz MT-10 spacecraft in October 2018 led to a postponement.
In April 2019, the astronaut from the UAE had to start with the Russian Oleg Skrypochka and the American Kristina Cook, and return with the astronaut Alexei Ovchinin and the astronaut Nick Haig. Information about with whom the astronaut from the UAE will fly now is not yet available. At the same time, it is worth noting that the UAE Space Center named after Mohammed bin Rashid also has not yet confirmed the exact date, while the information that the delegation of Roscosmos, led by Dmitry Rogozin, agreed to postpone the launch date, appeared in February 2019.
Earlier it was reported that the training in Russia of two applicants for the title of first UAE astronaut is going according to plan. Future astronauts experienced zero gravity and Siberian frosts.
