Like her ancestors did, Nora AlMatrooshi also studied the stars and since she was a child dreamed of traveling to the Moon. This week she became the first Arab female astronaut to graduate from a NASA program and she is ready to fulfill that desire.
Born in 1993 in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, she says that at school, during a class where they talked regarding space, the teacher simulated a trip to the Moon. She set up a tent in the classroom as a spaceship where the students entered and took flight. Then, they had to go out for a moon walk.
“We saw that she had turned off the lights in our classroom, she had everything covered with a gray cloth. And she told us that we were on the surface of the Moon. That day stuck in my mind,” he tells AFPclad in her blue astronaut suit, which bears her name and the flag of her country.
“I remember thinking: This is amazing, I really want to do this, I want to get to the surface of the Moon. And that’s when it all started,” he said.
A mechanical engineer with experience in the oil industry, Nora was one of the two astronaut candidates selected by the United Arab Emirates Space Agency in 2021 to be trained in a NASA program, thanks to a cooperation plan.
After two years of hard training, which included spacewalk simulations, Nora and pilot Mohammad AlMulla officially became Emirati astronauts, along with ten other applicants from the US space agency.
These members of “The Flies” promotion are now eligible for NASA missions to the International Space Station (ISS), the Artemis missions to the Moon and, if all goes well, to Mars.
In fact, the Emirati agency announced this year that it will build the airlock – exit and entry channel to the ship – of the Gateway, humanity’s future first space station around the Moon.
“I want to take humanity further than ever before. I want humanity to return to the moon, humanity to go beyond the Moon and be part of that journey,” he explained.
Other Arab women have already participated in private missions to space, such as the Saudi biomedic Rayyanah Barnawi, part of the second Axiom Space mission to the ISS in 2023, or the Egyptian Sara Sabry, who in 2022 crewed the Blue Origin NS-22 spacecraft. on a suborbital flight.
Hijab “made in NASA”
Due to her Muslim faith, AlMatrooshi wears her hair covered with a hijab. NASA put together a plan so that her hair would not be uncovered when she had to put on that enormous white suit with a helmet, the EMU (Extravehicular Mobility Unit, in English).
“Once inside the spacesuit, you must put on a communication cap [capucha que lleva micrófonos y audífono], which also covers your hair. But first there is a space where I don’t wear anything on my hair and I have to put on the communication cap, and we had to solve it,” she details.
Inside the EMU you cannot wear your conventional hijab, because only garments with specific authorized materials can be worn. “So the NASA engineers sewed a makeshift hijab for me, so I might put it on, get into the suit, put on the communication cap, then take off the hijab so my hair would always be covered. I appreciate them doing that for me. “, account.
The United States plans to take astronauts to the surface of the Moon once more in 2026, as part of the Artemis 3 mission, according to NASA.
“I think becoming an astronaut is difficult, regardless of what your religion or background is. So I don’t think being Muslim made it more difficult,” AlMatrooshi said.
“But being Muslim made me aware of the contributions of my ancestors, of the Muslim scholars and scientists who came before me and who studied the stars, and becoming an astronaut is simply building on that legacy of what they started thousands and thousands of years ago.” , he assured.
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