Halal menu for first Emirati astronaut's space mission is revealed

Space Food Laboratory, which specialises in astronaut food, will prepare traditional Emirati dishes for Hazza Al Mansouri’s mission

Hazza Al Mansouri and Sultan Al Neyadi train at the Russian Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in preparation for a trip to the International Space Station in September. Courtesy Dubai Media Office

In just over two months, the UAE’s first astronaut will be launched into space.

Hazza Al Mansouri’s journey to the International Space Station will be gruelling and the surroundings unfamiliar, but the Emirati will not be without the comforts of home.

Space Food Laboratory, a Russian company that produces astronaut food for mass consumption on Earth, will prepare traditional dishes for the duration of Mr Al Mansouri’s journey.

Mr Al Mansouri will be provided with a menu of Emirati delicacies including canned halal salona – a chicken stew – the pounded meat and rice dish madrouba, and balaleet, sweetened vermicelli served with an omelette, for breakfast.

The food will be processed in special pouches enabling it to be eaten at zero gravity, said the Russian state news agency Sputnik.

It will be ready by mid-August for the launch on September 25.

Mr Al Mansouri will depart for the ISS onboard a Russian Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft. He will be accompanied by Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and American astronaut Jessica Meir.

He will spend eight days on ISS performing scientific experiments such as testing the effects of weightlessness on the human body, returning on October 3.