Rayyanah Barnawi: Saudi Arabia to send its first woman astronaut into space

Saudi Arabia has named the country’s first woman astronaut who will be travelling to space later this year.

Rayyanah Barnawi, 33, will become the first woman from the kingdom to fly to space, on a 10-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS), reported the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

Ms Barnawi will be accompanied by fellow Saudi native Ali Al-Qarni, a fighter jet pilot in Saudi Arabia. They will become the second and third Saudi Arabians to fly to space.

Ms Barnawi is a biomedical researcher and has completed her Bachelors in Biomedical Sciences from Otago University, New Zealand. She also completed her Masters in Biomedical Sciences at Riyadh’s Alfaisal University.

According to the Saudi Space Commission, Ms Barnawi has over nine years of experience in cancer stem cell research. As part of the upcoming Saudi Arabian space mission, she will be responsible for conducting mission experiments during her stint aboard the ISS.

The Saudi Space Commission said the upcoming mission, to be executed in the latter half of 2023, is a collaboration between the Saudi Human Spaceflight Programme and US-based private spaceflight company Axiom.

“The step aims to empower Saudi capabilities in human spaceflight geared towards serving humanity and benefiting from the promising opportunities offered by the space industry,” the Saudi Press Agency said about the upcoming mission.

Saudi Arabia is also training two more astronauts, Mariam Fardous and Ali Al-Gamdi, as part of its human spaceflight programme.

Saudi Arabia will be the second Arab country to send astronauts on missions after the UAE, which announced in June last year that it was sending Sultan Al Neyadi on the first long-term space mission in cooperation with Nasa and SpaceX.

Emirati Nora Al Matrooshi became the first Arab woman to join the world of astronauts, after the UAE presented her as part of the second batch of its astronauts to Nasa in 2021.