A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will take off to the International Space Station from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at (0645 GMT) today. It will carry two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and a man from the UAE.
NASA’s Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, Russia’s Andrey Fedyaev and Sultan al-Neyadi of the United Arab Emirates will spend six months on the orbiting space station. Neyadi will be the fourth astronaut from an Arab country and the second from the United Arab Emirates to journey to space.It will also be the first space flight for Warren Hoburg and Fedyaev.
Space has remained a rare venue of cooperation between Moscow and Washington since the Russian attack on Ukraine has led to a dispute between Russia and US.
NASA is said to pay SpaceX to ferry astronauts to the flying laboratory roughly every six months.
