Watch: UAE astronauts Nora Al Matrooshi, Mohammad Al Mulla prepare for space journey

Watch: UAE astronauts Nora Al Matrooshi, Mohammad Al Mulla prepare for space journey

Dubai: The second batch of UAE astronauts, comprising Nora Al Matrooshi and Mohammad Al Mulla, is preparing for the next step of the space journey, following individual manoeuvering of T-6 aircraft as part of the NASA Astronaut Candidate Class. Al Matrooshi, 29, the UAE’s first female astronaut who is a mechanical engineer by education; and Al Mulla, 34, a helicopter pilot at Dubai Police, are in the thick of an intensive two-year astronaut training programme (Class 23) that began in January this year at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre – a hub of human spaceflight activity for more than half a century – in Houston, Texas. Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre earlier tweeted a video showing Al Matrooshi and Al Mulla flying a T-6, a single-engine turboprop aircraft used for pilot training, as part of their training at the NASA Astronaut Candidate Class. The flight training covered a variety of manoeuvres, including loop and aileron roll (an aerobatic manoeuver in which an aircraft does a full 360° revolution around its roll axis). The duo flew after completing ground school and simulator flying courses. On his official Instagram account, Al Mulla posted a short video of him flying the aircraft and captioned