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Sultan bin Salman Al Saud

Saudi - (KACST-SRI)

Retired

Date of Birth: June 27, 1956
Age: 68


Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (born 27 June 1956) is a former Royal Saudi Air Force pilot who flew aboard the American STS-51-G Space Shuttle mission as a payload specialist, and a member of the House of Saud. He is thus the first member of a royal family to be an astronaut, and the first Arab and Muslim to fly in space.

Space Shuttle Discovery / OV-103 | STS-51-G

National Aeronautics and Space Administration | United States of America
Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA
June 17, 1985, 11:33 a.m.
Status: Success
Mission:

STS-51-G was the eighteenth flight of the shuttle program and fifth for Space Shuttle Discovery. Sultan Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia was on board as a payload specialist; he became the first Arab, the first Muslim and first member of a royal family to fly into space. It was the first shuttle flight to fly without an astronaut from the pre-Shuttle era. Its mission was to deploy 3 10 satellites.

Low Earth Orbit
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Sultan bin Salman Al Saud

The Space Research Institute of Saudi Arabia is committed to space research for Suadi Arabia. Their space agency is chaired by Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, the first and only Saudi man to go to space aboard the STS-51-G for 7 days.


Long March 6A
Success
1 day, 5 hours ago
Tianhui 5 Group 02
Launch Complex 9A - Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

A pair of satellites officially described as for cartographic surveying purposes, details TBD.


Firefly Alpha
Success
2 days ago
FLTA005 (Noise of Summer)
Space Launch Complex 2W - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

Fifth flight of the Firefly Alpha small sat launcher, carrying eight cubesats for NASA's ELaNa 43 (Educational Launch of a Nanosatellite) mission.


Falcon 9
Success
2 days, 19 hours ago
Starlink Group 8-9
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

A batch of 20 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


H3-22
Success
5 days, 1 hour ago
Advanced Land Observing Satellite-4 (ALOS-4)
Yoshinobu Launch Complex LP-2 - Tanegashima Space Center, Japan

The Advanced Land Observing Satellite-4 (ALOS-4) is a Japanese satellite designed to observe the Earth's surface using a phased array type L-band syn…


Long March 7A
Success
6 days, 16 hours ago
ChinaSat 3A
201 - Wenchang Space Launch Site, People's Republic of China

Chinese communication geostationary satellite for unknown purposes.