Prior to 2017, Saudi Arabian law prohibited women from operating a vehicle or leaving the country unaccompanied. According to the Saudi kingdom’s press service, the first Arab lady will depart the planet after six years since the rule was altered. Rayyanah Barnawi has been selected by the Saudi Space Commission to complete the mission on board the International Space Station (ISS).

The young lady has training in molecular biology, genetics, and medicine. The scientist had previously worked as a lab research technician at King Faisal Specialty Hospital and a research facility in Riyadh before being selected. She will be Ali Al-Qarni in addition to the astronaut, both of whom will be a part of the mission crew. AX-2.

Although women’s engagement in the aerospace industry is not significantly later than men’s, their percentage of participation is comparatively very low. In June 1963, two years after Yuri Gagarin conducted the first space voyage in 1961, the Soviet Union’s Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to enter space.

Others who have ventured into space

Women’s spaceflight took 19 years to complete. The second was Soviet Svetlana Savitskaya, who was a member of the Soyuz T’s crew in August 1982. The first astronaut in the United States was Sally Ride, who launched from the space shuttle Challenger on mission STS-7 in June 1983.

The young woman is an expert in molecular biology, genetics, and medicine.

Image obtained from the Saudi Twitter agency

Other space travelers include Ellen Ochoa, of Mexican descent, who is regarded as the first woman of Latino origin to go into space despite the fact that the astronaut was born in the United States, and Mae Jemison, who orbited the Earth in 1992 and is the first African-American to achieve such an event. Eileen Collins, who is known for being the first female pilot of a space shuttle as well as the first commander of a mission to the cosmos.

In the second quarter of 2023, Rayyanah Barnawi will leave the United States for the International Space Station. Ali Al-Ghamdi and Mariam Fardous, who hold the distinction of becoming the first Arab women to scuba dive in the Arctic Ocean, are two other Arab astronauts who are being trained by the Saudi program.

The purpose of the Saudi space agency is to advance human spaceflight capabilities while also advancing scientific inquiry in fields including health, sustainability, and space technology.