Houston: Emirati astronaut Sultan Al-Neyadi on his upcoming space mission said on Wednesday that he will not be required to fast during Ramadan.
When the 41-year-old launches to the International Space Station (ISS) next month on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, he will make history as the first Arab astronaut to spend six months in space.
On February 26, Neyadi, NASA astronauts Warren Hoberg and Stephen Bowen, as well as Russia's Andrey Fedyaev, will board SpaceX Dragon Crew-6 and travel to the International Space Station.
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Neyadi replied that his position qualified as an exception when asked how he would observe the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims typically fast from dawn to sunset. We can actually have breakfast because I'm the epitome of a traveller, said Neyadi. "it's not necessary,"
In fact, if you're not feeling well, fasting isn't needed, he said.
So, anything that could jeopardize the mission or endanger the crew members is actually allowed, and we are allowed to have enough food. Neyadi is the second citizen of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates to travel into space.
Hazza al-Mansoori spent eight days on the ISS in September 2019.
On Wednesday, questions about whether political tensions on Earth, such as those surrounding Ukraine, spill over into space came to the fore for NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts at the Johnson Space Center.
As a veteran of three space shuttle missions and more than 20 years of working and training with astronauts, NASA's Bowen said, "It's always been amazing."
Once in space, there is only one crew, one vehicle and one shared objective. Fedyaev noted a "very long history" of Russian and American space cooperation.
The Russian cosmonaut said that "people's life in space on the International Space Station is actually setting a very good example of how people should live on Earth."
NASA representatives predicted a five-day handover between the four members of Dragon Crew-5, who have been on the ISS since October, and the members of SpaceX Dragon Crew-6.
Three astronauts from the Soyuz crew capsule damaged by a small meteorite strike in December are also currently aboard the ISS.
To bring the trio—Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio—back to Earth, Russia intends to launch an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) on February 20.
After the meteorite strike, their Soyuz MS-22 crew capsule developed a radiator coolant leak. In September, MS-22 carried Petelin, Prokopyev and Rubio to the International Space Station after liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan operated by Russia.
It has been decided to extend his stay on the ISS for several more months. Originally, they were supposed to return to Earth in March in the same spacecraft.
Since the 1960s, Russia has launched astronauts into space using the venerable but outdated Soyuz spacecraft.
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Since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, space has remained a unique area of cooperation between Moscow and Washington. Following the Cold War "Space Race", US–Russian cooperation increased at the time of the ISS launch in 1998.
