It will be the tenth piloted flight of a SpaceX Crew Dragon, the California rocket builder's third non-government mission and the second chartered by Axiom Space. EST Sunday with a backup launch opportunity at 5:14 p.m.
Liftoff atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is planned for 5:37 p.m. "This is a great opportunity for me to represent the country, to represent their dreams. "I'm very happy and honored to be here today representing the government of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Space Commission as the first Saudi woman astronaut going to the International Space Station. "Research has been my passion in life," she said at a pre-launch news conference. They will be the first Saudis to visit the space station, and Barnawi will become the first Saudi woman to fly in space. In any case, Alqarni and Barnawi will be the second and third Saudis to fly in space after Sultan Salman Al-Saud flew aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1985. But seats are thought to cost more than $50 million each.
Neither SpaceX nor Axiom will say how much the flight cost or how much Shoffner and the Saudi government chipped in for Alqarni and Barnawi. The Ax-2 crew (left to right): Ali Alqarni, Rayyanah Barnawi, commander Peggy Whitson and pilot John Shoffner. It is the second "private astronaut mission," or PAM, to the International Space Station chartered by Axiom and sanctioned by NASA, which is trying to encourage private-sector development of low-Earth orbit.
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