Saudi Astronauts Successfully Launched Toward ISS

Rayannah Barnawi and her colleague Ali Al Qarni successfully launched on board a Space X Falcon 9 rocket towards the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday, May 21st at 5:37 p.m. (EDT time).

The astronauts made history as Barnawi became the first Saudi woman to travel to space. 

The duo are part of the Axiom Space 2 mission and they are accompanied by astronaut Peggy Whitson and business pioneer and pilot John Shoffner.

This space mission will make an eight-day trip. The space mission has also been assigned 20 experiments, 14 of which have been assigned to Barnawi and Al Qarni. 

These experiments include cloud seeding, observing the inflammatory response of immune cells in microgravity, and investigating changes in mRNA.

Image source: @saudispace Twitter page