Who Am I?

Hazza al Mansouri was born in 1983 in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. He grew up near the Liwa Desert, where he spent many nights gazing up at the stars and dreaming of one day reaching them. As a child, he loved to explore and was fascinated by aeroplanes and space travel. He worked hard at school and went on to study aviation at the Khalifa bin Zayed Air College, graduating in 2004. He joined the UAE Armed Forces and became a military pilot — eventually becoming the youngest F-16 fighter pilot in the UAE. He is now proud to represent his country and the whole Arab world.p

What Am I Known For?

In 2019, he became the first person from the United Arab Emirates, and the first Arab, to travel to the International Space Station (ISS), making the UAE the 19th country in the world to send an astronaut there. His enthusiasm drove him every step of the way, and he never stopped being excited about space, even when others laughed at the idea of an Emirati astronaut. He threw himself into more than 1,400 hours of training across Russia, the USA and Germany, learning new skills — and even a new language! — with energy and excitement. His curiosity has always pushed him to ask questions and find out more. While on the ISS, he carried out 31 experiments, studying things like how seeds grow and how humans experience time in microgravity. He also filmed the very first tour of the ISS ever recorded in Arabic, so that young people across the Arab world could see it too. When he looks back at all he has achieved so far, he feels deep gratitude and often talks about how his parents, teachers, family and even those who doubted him all helped shape who he became. When looking down at the UAE from 400km above Earth, he experienced deep appreciation for its beauty, and it moved him deeply. Today, he continues to work in space exploration, hoping to inspire the next generation to reach for the stars — just as he once did from the desert sands of Liwa.

Photo: Maha.Khatem, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons