Astronauts Sultan Al Neyadi and Hazza Al Mansouri have completed Nasa's geology training in the US state of New Mexico, as the UAE's space programme prepares for new destinations such as the Moon.
Nasa uses New Mexico for its geology courses because of the south-western state's abundance of exposed rock and rugged terrain similar to that found on the Moon and Mars.
The training lasted two weeks and “included studying rocks, identifying their types, and learning about the geological history of regions, in preparation for future missions”, according to the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre.
Dr Al Neyadi expanded on his experience in a post on X. “This training is an important part of our preparations to explore new destinations, including the Moon,” he wrote. “It helps us learn how to assess the general geology of a region through direct field observations and the rock samples found there.”
In a separate post, Major Al Mansouri called the training an “important priority” for future space expeditions, and said that both UAE astronauts “learnt about the geological history” of New Mexico.
In 2019, Maj Al Mansouri became the first Emirati astronaut to travel to outer space for an eight-day mission on the International Space Station (ISS). In 2023, Dr Al Neyadi also left his mark in the UAE history books by spending six months on the ISS.
The UAE has made significant strides in recent decades in developing its space programme.
UAE Founding Father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, had a keen interest in Nasa's launches in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Efforts to expand the UAE's space footprint started to pay off in 2018 with the launch of KhalifaSat, the first satellite designed entirely by UAE engineers and scientists.
The UAE's Hope Probe in 2021 entered the orbit of Mars, where it collected data, sent back photos and provided new insights on the planet. The hashtag “Arabs to Mars” trended globally on Twitter, as X was then known.
In March this year, UAE Space Agency chairman Dr Ahmad Al Falasi said the nation was working hard on plans to send an autonomous spacecraft, the MBR Explorer, to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
He also spoke of the UAE's goal to train more Emirati astronauts, and praised an announcement from Nasa that indicated it hoped to “return to the Moon before the end of President [Donald] Trump's term”.
“I commend the US for fast-tracking that,” Dr Al Falasi said. There is plenty of momentum to go to the Moon in a “multilateral way”, he said. “Besides exploring the asteroid belt, we want to go to the Moon with the US and hopefully get our first astronaut there as well.”
