The United Arab Emirates will send astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi to live on the space station. His mission in space will coincide with the month of Ramadan, and Neyadi revealed that he will not fast while in space.
Neyadi will be the first Arab astronaut to spend six months on the International Space Station (ISS). He will fly to the ISS as part of the Crew-6 mission using SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.
This mission will fly Neyadi along with two NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev to the ISS on February 26.
At a press conference held by NASA, Neyadi was asked how he would fast in space during Ramadan. The 41-year-old said his situation earned him an exception and he was not required to fast.
"I fall into... the definition of a traveler, and we can actually break our fast. It is not obligatory," Neyadi said, as quoted by AFP, Friday (27/1/2023).
"Actually fasting is not obligatory if you ... are not feeling well. So in that case, anything that could harm the mission or might harm our crew members, we are actually allowed to eat enough food," he continued.
Neyadi will be the second astronaut from the UAE to fly into space. In September 2019, astronaut Hazzaa al-Mansoori spent eight days on the ISS.
The ISS itself is currently more crowded than usual. Currently on the ISS there are four crew members from the Crew-5 mission who have been on the space station since October 2022.
The ISS is also still hosting three astronauts who cannot return to Earth because the Soyuz capsule they were supposed to be traveling on experienced a leak after being hit by a meteoroid last December. Russia plans to send an empty capsule to the ISS on February 20 to pick up NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, as well as Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev.
