Meet the Woman Launching the UAE Into the Asteroid Belt
Tony Ho TranWhen Sarah Al Amiri grew up in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), space wasn’t something that she—or really anyone else—paid that much attention to. That’s something that you might take for granted if you grew up in, say, the U.S. or Russia where space exploration is embedded into the cultural fabric of the country. But in the UAE, a country that was just 16 years old when Amiri was born, space just wasn’t a priority.
“When you grow up in the U.S., you already have those space programs there,” Al Amiri told The Daily Beast. “We didn’t have even a semblance of that when I was growing up. It was something you thought of as a fascination—not a career choice.”
It’s ironic then that she would go on to not only become the Minister of State for Science but also the first chairwoman of the United Arab Emirates Space Agency (UAESA). She deserved it, too. After all, she had helped lead the UAESA’s Mars Hope mission to the red planet as the project’s science lead.
Since then, Amiri has been helping lead the UAESA into even more ambitious “moonshot” projects—including literally going to the moon. In April, the agency sent a rover to the lunar surface with the Japanese private aerospace company ispace. While the lander ended up crashing on the moon—and, with it, the UAESA’s rover—Amiri said that the mission only doubled the agency’s resolve to try again and go even further.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-sarah-al-amiri-is-launching-the-uae-into-the-asteroid-belt
Interesting woman with interesting opinions
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Sarah Al Amiri — the 33-year-old scientist who led UAE’s Hope orbiter mission to Mars
Sandhya Ramesh Published February 10, 2021 73
UAE Minister of State for Advanced Sciences Sarah bint Yousif Al Amir speaks during an event to mark Hope Probe's entering the orbit of Mars, in Dubai on Tuesday. — Reuters
Along with India and EU, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently became successful in inserting a spacecraft into orbit around Mars on the first try. The mission was announced in 2014 and the Hope probe succeeded in entering the planet’s orbit on February 9.
Leading the science mission as deputy project manager is Sarah bint Yousif Al Amiri, a computer engineer and also the country’s first Minister of State for Advanced Sciences.
Al Amiri, 33, is also the chairperson of UAE’s space agency Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, which developed the Hope orbiter (or Al Amal), in conjunction with University of Colorado Boulder, University of California-Berkeley and Arizona State University.
The Iranian-born Al Amiri is one of the youngest ministers worldwide and is also the youngest to lead a space agency.
More:
https://www.dawn.com/news/1606585
It was good to learn about this excellent unexpected minister. Best wishes for a long, successful career for her.
Thank you, Jilly in VA.