In addition to 34-year-old Rayana Barnawi, who is also the first Muslim woman in space, and her compatriot, air force pilot Ali al-Qarni, former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and American entrepreneur John Shoffner also travel to the ISS. The crew of four should arrive at the space station at 3:24 p.m. (Belgian time) on Monday. The astronauts will stay there for about ten days and participate in scientific experiments.
It is only the second time in history that a completely private mission has been sent to the ISS. The first time this happened in April 2022. Several individual space tourists had already traveled to the ISS before that, but never with a completely private crew.
The mission is being organized by the aerospace company Axiom Space, in collaboration with NASA and SpaceX. According to media reports, the passengers each paid about 50 million euros for the trip, although Saudi Arabia would have bought two of the four seats on board to advertise the country.