Private astronaut crew, including first Arab woman in orbit, returns
from space station
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[May 31, 2023]
By Steve Gorman
(Reuters) -An all-private astronaut team of two Americans and two
Saudis, including the first Arab woman sent into orbit, splashed down
safely off Florida on Tuesday night, capping an eight-day research
mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying them parachuted into the Gulf of
Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida, after a 12-hour return
flight and blazing re-entry plunge through Earth's atmosphere.
The splashdown was carried live by a joint webcast presented by SpaceX
and the company behind the mission, Axiom Space.
It concluded the second space station mission organized, equipped and
trained entirely at private expense by Axiom, a 7-year-old Houston-based
venture headed by NASA's former ISS program manager.
The Axiom 2 crew was led by retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, 63,
who holds the U.S. record for most time spent in orbit with 665 days in
space over three long-duration missions to the ISS, including 10
spacewalks. She now serves as Axiom's director of human spaceflight.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/May/31/images/ads/current/powell_sda_PROMGRAD_2023.png)
"That was a phenomenal ride. We really enjoyed all of it," Whitson
radioed to mission controllers moments after splashdown.
Ax-2's designated pilot was John Shoffner, 67, an aviator, race car
driver and investor from Alaska.
Rounding out the crew as mission specialists were the first two
astronauts from Saudi Arabia to fly aboard a private spacecraft - Ali
Alqarni, 31, a fighter pilot for the Royal Saudi Air Force; and Rayyanah
Barnawi, 34, a biomedical scientist in cancer stem-cell research.
Barnawi is the first woman from the Arab world ever launched into Earth
orbit and the first Saudi woman to fly in space, an achievement that
came barely five years after women in the Gulf kingdom gained the right
to drive in June 2018.
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![](../images/053123PIX/news_p23.jpg)
Commander Peggy Whitson and mission
specialist Rayyanah Barnawi representing Saudi Arabia arrive before
the planned Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2) launch to the International Space
Station at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, U.S. May 21, 2023.
REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/May/31/images/ads/current/graue_lda_preowned_053123.jpg)
In August 2022, Sara Sabry became the first Arab woman and the first
Egyptian to fly to space on a brief suborbital ride operated by the
Blue Origin astro-tourist venture of Jeff Bezos.
The ISS stay of Alqarni and Barnawi was also notable for overlapping
with that of Sultan Alneyadi, an ISS Expedition-69 crew member from
the United Arab Emirates, marking the first time three astronauts
from the Arab world were aboard the space station together.
The Axiom 2 mission, which launched on May 21, was the latest in a
series of space expeditions bankrolled by private investment capital
and wealthy passengers rather than by taxpayer dollars as NASA seeks
to expand commercial access to low-Earth orbit.
Axiom, which sent its first four-member astronaut team to ISS in
April 2022, also has signed a contract with the U.S. space agency to
build the first commercial addition to the orbiting laboratory.
California-based SpaceX, founded by Twitter owner and Tesla Inc
electric carmaker CEO Elon Musk, supplied the Falcon 9 rocket and
crew capsule that ferried Axiom's team to and from orbit and
controlled the flight.
NASA furnished the launch site at its Kennedy Space Center in Cape
Canaveral, Florida, and assumed responsibility for the Axiom crew
during their stay aboard the space station, orbiting some 250 miles
(400 km) above Earth.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Howard Goller
and Gerry Doyle)
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