Jewish and Arab astronauts were aboard a capsule launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, headed for the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, a Swedish-American-Israeli Jew, took off for space along with Russia’s Oleg Skripochka and the United Arab Emirates’s Hazzaa al-Mansoori.
Mansoori, the first Emirati astronaut, is scheduled to return to Earth on Oct. 3 with NASA’s Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin. Meir and Skripochka are expected to stay on the ISS until the spring of 2020.
3-2-1… LIFTOFF! 🚀 At 9:57am ET, @Astro_Jessica 🇺🇸, cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka 🇷🇺 & spaceflight participant Hazzaa Ali Almansoori 🇦🇪 launched on a journey to their new home aboard the @Space_Station. Tune in: https://t.co/x0oE4sFcsu pic.twitter.com/ETKVudGbNe
— NASA (@NASA) September 25, 2019
JNS