The International Space Station will offer UAE astronaut local dishes, canned halal food
Hazza Al Mansouri inside a Soyuz spacecraft at the Yuri Gagarin training centre.Image Credit: Supplied
Dubai: The UAE’s first astronaut to go into space will receive a special menu that caters to his needs, including madrooba and balaleet.
Hazza Al Mansouri is the first astronaut from the UAE, and is currently preparing for his mission to the International Space Station (ISS) for the September 25 launch date.
The Space Food Laboratory company, which specialises in the production of astronaut food, will prepare the traditional Emirati dishes.
According to the Russian news agency Sputnik, Space Food Laboratory will provide Al Mansouri with canned halal food, such as balaleet, saloona and madrooba.
The dishes are expected to be ready by mid-August.
Al Mansouri will be launched to space aboard a Soyuz MS 15 spacecraft for an eight-day stay on the ISS before returning to Earth.
Emirati astronauts get custom Soyuz (MS-15) seats ahead of the first Emirati Arab astronaut's trip to the International Space Station on 25 September 2019.Image Credit: Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre
Accompanied by Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and American astronaut Jessica Meir, Al Mansouri will carry out a number of scientific experiments before returning to Earth on October 3.
The meals
Balaleet: A traditional, sweet Emirati breakfast dish of egg and vermicelli.
Watch: UAE astronauts complete training in Europe
Al Mansouri, Al Neyadi receive 30 hours of theoretical and practical sessions
Hazza Al Mansouri and Sultan Al Neyadi during a training session at the European Astronaut Centre.Image Credit: Supplied
Dubai: Less than three months before one of them is launched to space, Emirati astronauts Hazza Al Mansouri and Sultan Al Neyadi have completed their training at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) of the European Space Agency (ESA) in Cologne, Germany.
The Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) on Monday announced that Al Mansouri and backup astronaut Al Neyadi completed around 30 hours of theoretical and practical training supervised by a group of ESA specialists in time for the September 25 mission.
Yousuf Hamad Al Shaibani, Director-General of MBRSC, attended part of the training along with Salem Al Merri, Assistant Director-General for Scientific and Technical Affairs at MBRSC and Head of the UAE Astronaut Programme.
September 25
Hazza Al Mansouri will go to space aboard a Soyuz MS 15 and spend eight days on the International Space Station
The training focused on the European unit, Columbus, on-board the International Space Station (ISS). Al Mansouri and Al Neyadi learnt how the equipment and systems in the European unit of the ISS work, such as the Life Support System that ensures the survival of astronauts on the ISS.
Both astronauts trained in a European laboratory simulating the Columbus on the ISS that also included communicating with the ground station. The Columbus Laboratory is ESA’s largest single contribution to the ISS, shared by Nasa and ESA to carry out the largest number of scientific researches in a virtually non-gravitational environment.
Under the supervision of researchers and trainers from ESA, the two astronauts were trained on the scientific experiments the UAE astronaut will be working on during his time on-board. The training programme included four main types of scientific experiments: Time perception in microgravity (TIME), Brain DTI, Fluidics (fluid dynamics in space), and DNAm-age, which tests the changes that happen to human’s DNA due to travelling to space.
For the first time, this experiment will be carried out on an astronaut from the Arab region.
HE Yousuf AlShaibani and Salem AlMarri during their visit to the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) of the European Space Agency (ESA) in Cologne, Germany, where the two Emirati astronauts Hazzaa AlMansoori and Sultan AlNeyadi were receiving training. In the photo, they are joined by Dr. Rüdiger Seine, Lead, Space Training Team, European Astronaut Centre
Al Shaibani said the Al Mansouri and Al Neyadi’s training at the ESA is a significant contribution to developing their skills.
Al Shaibani stressed that what he saw at EAC reflects the commitment of the UAE’s leadership to offer all the possibilities and modern technologies, to enhance the capabilities of the two astronauts to qualify to travel to the ISS, and return home safely to continue building the space sector in the UAE.
Meanwhile, Al Merri noted that the first phase of both experiments, the DNA-m age and TIME, has already started at EAC where data and samples were collected from the UAE astronauts. These experiments aim to measure the impact of travelling to space and microgravity environment on human body.
100 days to go for first Emirati to enter space
MBRSC begin countdown to September 25 mission to International Space Station
Hazza Al Mansouri with primary crewmates Oleg Skripochka and Jessica Meir Image Credit: Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre
Dubai: The 100-day countdown to the launch of the first Emirati into space has begun.
The Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) on Monday posted a video of Hazza Al Mansouri, the first astronaut from the UAE, as he prepares for his mission to the International Space Station (ISS) 100 days from the September 25 launch date.
Al Mansouri will be launched to space aboard a Soyuz MS 15 spacecraft for an eight-day stay on the ISS before returning to Earth aboard a Soyuz-MS 12.
Yousuf Hamad Al Shaibani, director-general of MBRSC, said: “Day after day, we get closer to achieving the vision of our wise leadership to make the UAE a leader in the space industry, with the first Emirati astronaut travelling into space to conduct scientific experiments that benefit humanity. Less than 100 days are left to travel to ISS.”
Al Mansouri and fellow Emirati astronaut and backup, Sultan Al Neyadi, are undergoing a series of quality training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, Russia on the various aspects of the mission to ISS, along with the prime and backup flight crews.
The mission’s main crew includes Roscosmos commander Oleg Skripochka, and American astronaut, Jessica Meir, both of whom are training with Al Mansouri.
Al Neyadi, on the other hand, is undergoing similar training with the backup team, which is also composed of three astronauts including Sergei Nikolaevich, the Russian flight commander of Roscosmos, and Thomas Henry, the American astronaut of Nasa.
The crew will train on the Soyuz MS so they would know take-off and landing procedures and how to respond with emergency situations.
Salem Al Merri, assistant director-general for science and technology sector and head of UAE Astronaut Programme, lauded the astronauts for the progress they have made through months of training.
“We are proud of the level that the astronauts have reached due to their huge effort and the support provided to them. They gained a lot of experience through the intensive training that they underwent so far, which qualifies them to carry out the task perfectly. Nevertheless, there is additional training with our partners in Russia, Europe and the US, to prepare them well before 25 September,” he said.
Al Mansouri and Al Neyadi are to travel to the European Astronaut Centre, which is overseen by the European Space Agency in Cologne, Germany, and then to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, for further training.
Prior to the mission launch, the astronauts will undergo a range of medical tests to measure their physical and mental fitness levels, as per global standards.
Quelle: GULF NEWS
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Halal menu for first Emirati astronaut's space mission is revealed
Space Food Laboratory, which specialises in astronaut food, will prepare traditional Emirati dishes for Hazza Al Mansouri’s mission
Hazza Al Mansouri and Sultan Al Neyadi train at the Russian Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in preparation for a trip to the International Space Station in September. Courtesy Dubai Media Office
In just over two months, the UAE’s first astronaut will be launched into space.
Hazza Al Mansouri’s journey to the International Space Station will be gruelling and the surroundings unfamiliar, but the Emirati will not be without the comforts of home.
Space Food Laboratory, a Russian company that produces astronaut food for mass consumption on Earth, will prepare traditional dishes for the duration of Mr Al Mansouri’s journey.
Mr Al Mansouri will be provided with a menu of Emirati delicacies including canned halal salona – a chicken stew – the pounded meat and rice dish madrouba, and balaleet, sweetened vermicelli served with an omelette, for breakfast.
The food will be processed in special pouches enabling it to be eaten at zero gravity, said the Russian state news agency Sputnik.
It will be ready by mid-August for the launch on September 25.
Mr Al Mansouri will depart for the ISS onboard a Russian Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft. He will be accompanied by Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and American astronaut Jessica Meir.
He will spend eight days on ISS performing scientific experiments such as testing the effects of weightlessness on the human body, returning on October 3.
