Saudi Arabia’s first female astronaut and fighter pilot set to embark on historic space station mission

A milestone private mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled to launch from Florida on Sunday. Organised by Axiom Space, this historic journey will feature two Saudi astronauts onboard. Rayyanah Barnawi, a distinguished breast cancer researcher, will make history as the first Saudi woman to embark on a space voyage. Joining her on this mission is Ali Al-Qarni, a skilled fighter pilot from Saudi Arabia. The team is further complemented by Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut, who will be undertaking her fourth flight to the ISS, and John Shoffner, a Tennessee-based businessman, who will serve as the pilot. The Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2) crew will take off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in the southern state of Florida at 5:37 pm (2137 GMT). They are due to spend around 10 days on board the ISS, where they should arrive around 1:30 pm on Monday.