Sultan AlNeyadi and Hazzaa AlMansoori complete the ESA Columbus training module

Sultan AlNeyadi and Hazzaa AlMansoori complete the ESA Columbus training module

Dubai, United Arab Emirates: The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) astronauts Sultan AlNeyadi and Hazzaa AlMansoori, have officially completed the European Space Agency Columbus training module for the SpaceX Crew 6 mission under the UAE Astronaut Programme.

The intense training dealt with technical disciplines of significant categories including Expedition 69’s payloads, The expedition’s experiments, Handling hardware, Routine maintenance and Responding to contingencies. Both the astronauts went through theoretical and real-time practical sessions on the above categories.

The entire training module took place at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC), which is located in Cologne. For astronauts and ground operations personnel, EAC is the training centre for all European-built ISS hardware, including ESA's Columbus laboratory and European payloads.

Aboard SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft Sultan AlNeyadi along with two other astronauts, Crew 6 will launch to ISS from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in mid-February next year. The crew will spend about six months on the space station, beginning with a brief handover from Crew-5, who arrived in October for a science expedition at the microgravity laboratory.

During the mission, Sultan will conduct numerous in-depth and advanced scientific experiments as part of the second mission of the UAE Astronaut Programme, that