Dubai: UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi has completed one month on the International Space Station (ISS) where he is conducting several scientific experiments and research.

The Najmonaut (Arab astronaut) who is on the longest Arab space mission lasting for six months, took to social media to mark the milestone and announced that he and his crewmates of NASA SpaceX Crew-6 have made significant progress in the experiments and research for their mission.

Al Neyadi, 41, launched into space along with 3 other Crew-6 members on a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket on March 2.

The Crew Dragon Endeavour carrying Al Neyadi, along with NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos, had automatically docked to the Harmony module of the ISS at 10:40am UAE time on March 3.

Recollecting the launch, Al Neyadi tweeted: “A month ago, we launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida and began our journey into space. Since then, we have witnessed more than 450 sunrises and sunsets, and made significant progress in the experiments and research for our mission.”

One of his favourite activities on the ISS has been getting behind the lens for Earth observation, capturing breathtaking sights than can only be witnessed from space. The images that he captured from the Cupola of the ISS include some stunning visuals of the UAE, Egypt and Sahara Desert.

Al Neyadi’s recorded video sessions have been used in the ELF in Space programme through which school students are learning more about space explorations.

During the past month, Al Neyadi also had his first hair cut in space, posed a space trivia and shared posts that urge people to preserve water, our planet Earth and the need for exercising especially in space.

From Expedition-68 to 69

While living and working aboard the orbital outpost with the 11-member Expedition 68, Al Neyadi shared a wonderful time with the Crew-5, four of whom returned to Earth in the second week of March.

The Crew-6 quartet are now part of the Expedition 69 which includes NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin.

The Expedition 69 experiments include studying how particular materials burn in microgravity to keep spacecraft safe, testing a new tool for deep-space immune monitoring in orbit, continuing work with 3D-cultured cardiac muscle tissue to assess human cardiac function in microgravity, and testing samples for microorganisms from outside of the space station.