UAE astronauts Hazza Al Mansouri and Sultan Al Neyadi held the UAE flag yesterday at a ceremony to raise the flags of the countries, which have crew members of the astronauts participating in the mission, namely the United Arab Emirates, the Russian Federation and the United States.
Russian astronaut Oleg Scribochka, US astronaut Jessica Mir and members of the alternative crew, including Russian Sergey Rizikov and American Thomas Marshburn, attended the ceremony.
Al-Mansouri, Niyadi and the main and alternative space mission teams visited the Baikonur Space Museum, which is a microcosm of the base. It contains various spacecraft and miniature models of the types of missiles launched into space.
They also signed the wall of Sergei Korolev in the museum, the chief architect and designer of the Soviet Union's space rockets in the 1940s and 1950s.
The astronauts arrived in Baikonur on September 10 and tested for the readiness of the so-called Sukkol, which is being worn inside the Soyuz spacecraft, during two launches to the International Space Station and return to Earth.
The main and alternative crews also conducted the first inspection of the MS-15 Soyuz to ensure that all equipment, devices and cargo were in normal condition and to record any observations of the engineers responsible for the vehicle.
During the inspection, the UAE astronauts and their crew identified a set of safety and operating procedures for the Soyuz MS15 and tested the equipment to be used in space.
It is noteworthy that the mission of the first Emirati astronaut to the International Space Station falls under the program «Emirates Astronauts», which is supervised by Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center, and is the first integrated program in the Arab region to prepare national cadres participating in manned space missions for scientific missions They become part of the research undertaken by the international scientific community to devise solutions to many challenges that in turn help to improve the lives of humans on Earth.
Launched in 2007, the UAE Astronaut Program is directly supported by the Telecommunications and Information Technology Development Fund (TDIC), the first of its kind in the Middle East. Communication in the state, enrich, support and develop technical services and promote the integration of the state in the global economy.