Mohamed El Qousy, Head of the Egyptian Space Station, has just announced that his organization is planning to send an Egyptian astronaut on a mission to the International Space Station.
These comments came in light of the United Arab Emirates Space Agency’s delegation visit to the Egyptian Space City in Cairo last Wednesday. According to Ahram Online, both parties discussed cooperation and exchange of expertise in the field of space.
This announcement came a few weeks after the first Emirati astronaut and third Arab made it to space. Will Egypt be remembered as the fourth Arab country to put one of its own in space? El Qousy believes that the dream is not far-fetched.
According to the Director of Policy and Legislation at the UAE Space Agency, Nasser Rashid, cooperation between the two leading nations is a must to achieve integration between the two space agencies and to establish an Arab bloc on the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.
The UAE’s recent launch of the Arab Satellite 813 was the first step upon which Arab cooperation in the fields of space exploration and space travel can be established.
The Arab Satellite 813 weighs around 150 kilograms and orbits the earth at an altitude of 600 kilometers with the purpose of serving all the Arab World in remote sensing and communications.
In 2018, the Egyptian Space Agency was established to help lay down the infrastructure for the Egyptian space program.