UAE Astronaut To Fly To ISS In April 2019 As Scheduled - UAE Space Agency

Daniyal Sohail Published November 16, 2018 | 12:48 PM

An United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronaut will take part in a flight to the International Space Station (ISS) in April 2019 as it has been planned, as the Russian space agency Roscosmos has not informed the UAE Space Agency on a reschedule, Mohammed Ahbabi, the director general of the agency, said in an interview with Sputnik

MANAMA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th November, 2018) An United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronaut will take part in a flight to the International Space Station (ISS) in April 2019 as it has been planned, as the Russian space agency Roscosmos has not informed the UAE Space Agency on a reschedule, Mohammed Ahbabi, the director general of the agency, said in an interview with Sputnik.

A source in the aerospace industry told Sputnik on October 12 that the UAE could cancel its plans to send its astronaut to the ISS in April in the wake of the recent failed launch of the Soyuz spacecraft, and reschedule his flight.

"I'm still discussing the possible changes in the date of the first UAE astronaut flight, in the wake of the Soyuz accident, but I can say frankly that we have not received any official notification or any order on the UAE astronaut flight reschedule. The date of the first UAE astronaut flight to the ISS remain the same, April 2019," Ahbabi said.

He specified that the astronauts' training was being conducted in a normal mode, with no changes introduced considering the time or the workload.

Ahbabi voiced his hope that the Soyuz launch scheduled for December would be carried out successfully.

"The flight safety is important for us, the danger to the astronaut's life should be minimized, and we're constantly discussing it with the Russian side that is still investigating the reason of what happened to Soyuz. But we have not changed our program yet," Ahbabi added.

On October 11, a Soyuz-FG rocket carrying Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague malfunctioned minutes after the liftoff, sending their capsule into a steep fall back to Earth. They were not harmed. Roscosmos subsequently said that the accident was caused by a sensor failure.