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Saudi astronauts get ready to splashdown on Earth
Saudi astronauts Rayyanah Barnawi and Ali al-Qarni are ready to splashdown on Earth Tuesday after a 12-hour journey in space aboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule.
The spacecraft departed the International Space Station on Tuesday and a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Florida is expected shortly after 7am.
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Barnawi – who isthe first Arab woman to go on a space mission – and her colleague al-Qarni are the first Saudi astronauts to go to space in nearly 40 years, after Prince Sultan bin Salman was launched on NASA's Space Shuttle in 1985.
The four-man crew – which include American colleagues, Peggy Whitson and John Shoffner – who make up the four-person crew dubbed the Axiom-2 mission – will shortly re-enter the planet's atmosphere.
A NASA livefeed confirmed that the crew had been “training extensively” for the splashdown and their post-space rehabilitation back on Earth.
“They are returning from ten days from space…their bodies are going to feel very different.”
The Ax-2 crew will have completed approximately 10 days in space by the conclusion of their mission.
During their time on the orbiting laboratory, the Ax-2 astronauts successfully executed over 20 STEAM (Science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) outreach engagements and more than 20 research studies in microgravity, as well as eight media events.
The SpaceX Dragon will return to Earth with more than 300 pounds of cargo and important data that will impact understanding of human physiology on Earth and on-orbit, as well as establish the utility of novel technologies that could be used for future human spaceflight pursuits and benefit humankind on Earth.
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