Saudi Arabia’s first astronauts in decades took off on a chartered multimillion-dollar flight to the International Space Station on Sunday. SpaceX launched a ticket-holding crew, led by a retired NASA astronaut who now works for the travel-arrangement company. This is the second private flight to the space station organized by Houston-based Axiom Space. The first was done last year by three businessmen, along with another retired NASA astronaut. “Our job is to expand what we do in low-Earth orbit around the world,” said Joel Montalbano, NASA’s space station program manager.

Source: Daily Nation May 21, 2023 22:36 UTC