The United Arab Emirates have not yet made a decision on which country's spacecraft will carry their next flight into space, but the Russian Soyuz remains one of the options, Salem Al-Marri, Deputy Director-General for Scientific and Technical Affairs at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC) of the UAE, told TASS on the sidelines of the Global Space Exploration Conference GLEX-2021.
"A decision has not yet been made. We are considering Crew Dragon, Boeing, Soyuz. We are taking into consideration all the vehicles that can get us into space," Al-Marri said.
He explained that the UAE astronauts are currently busy training. "Our colleagues are now training at NASA. Two more astronauts who have been selected for the flight will also train at NASA in the next two years and get the necessary qualifications," the UAE official said.
"We passed the first phase of training in Russia and we are very happy about it. Our second phase of training is now taking place in the United States, and we're very happy about that as well. As we go through those phases, we will look at opportunities that will fit our needs. We're also looking at Russia as one of the options," he concluded.
Earlier it was reported that the UAE authorities are studying the possibility of sending a second mission to the ISS and are interested in cooperation with Russia and the United States.
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Based on materials from TASS