NOURA AL-MATROUSHI

About:

• Noura al-Matroushi has been identified as the UAE’s first woman astronaut, with her male counterpart as Mohammed al-Mulla.
  
  
• The two will undergo training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
  
  
• If al-Matroushi ends up going on a mission, she could become the first Arab woman in space.
  
  

UAE space programme

• In February 2021, the UAE put its Amal, or Hope, satellite in orbit around Mars, a first for the Arab world.
  
  
• In 2024, the country hopes to put an unmanned spacecraft on the moon.
  
  
• The UAE also has set the ambitious goal of building a human colony on Mars by 2117.