Nine astronaut candidates from the UAE will go to Russia for selection.
Dubai, UAE. Nine candidates for the title of the first ever astronaut from the UAE will go to the final stage of selection to Russia.
On June 20, Russia and the UAE signed a preliminary agreement to send the first emirate cosmonaut to the International Space Station aboard the manned spacecraft Soyuz MS-12, the flight is scheduled for April 2019.
The Muhammad bin Rashid Space Center in the UAE has reduced the number of candidates from 18 to 9 based on interviews in which experts from space agencies in other countries participated.
The nine remaining candidates will be tested by experts from the Cosmonaut Training Center named after Yu. A. Gagarin. As a result, a detailed dossier will be compiled for each candidate, based on which the UAE will select four members of the country's first cosmonaut corps.
In this case, only two candidates will be sent to Russia for training - one each for the main and spare crew of the Soyuz spacecraft. It is expected that preparations will begin in August 2018, after the conclusion of a final agreement between Roscosmos and the Space Center of Mohammed bin Rashid.
