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The astronaut Nora Al Matrooshi, the first Arab woman trained as an astronaut, is from:
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Answer: Option B — United Arab Emirates
Detailed Solution
Nora Al Matrooshi is an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the first Arab woman to be trained as an astronaut.
About Nora Al Matrooshi:
- She was born in 1993.
- She studied mechanical engineering at the UAE University.
- She worked as an engineer with the National Petroleum Construction Company before joining the space programme.
- In April 2021, she was selected, along with Mohammed Al Mulla, as one of the two members of the second batch of the UAE Astronaut Programme, run by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC).
- She trained at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, USA, with NASA's 2021 astronaut class ("The Flies").
- In March 2024, she graduated from NASA's astronaut training programme, becoming eligible for spaceflight missions.
The UAE's space programme:
- Hazza Al Mansouri became the first Emirati in space in September 2019, flying to the International Space Station (ISS) on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
- Sultan Al Neyadi became the first Arab to perform a spacewalk (April 2023), during a six-month mission on the ISS (2023), the longest Arab space mission.
- The "Emirates Mars Mission" (Hope Probe, "Al Amal") reached Mars orbit in February 2021; the UAE became the first Arab country and the fifth country to reach Mars.
- The UAE plans the "Rashid" lunar rover missions and an asteroid belt mission.
- The UAE Space Agency was established in 2014.
Women in space:
- Valentina Tereshkova (Soviet Union): the first woman in space (1963).
- Sally Ride: the first American woman in space (1983).
- Kalpana Chawla: the first woman of Indian origin in space (1997); died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster (2003).
- Sunita Williams: an Indian-origin American astronaut; returned to Earth in March 2025 after an extended stay of about nine months on the ISS.
- Rayyanah Barnawi (Saudi Arabia): the first Saudi woman in space (May 2023, Axiom Mission 2).
India's astronauts:
- Rakesh Sharma: first Indian in space (1984).
- Shubhanshu Shukla: flew to the ISS on the Axiom-4 mission in June-July 2025, the first Indian on the ISS.
- Gaganyaan: India's human spaceflight programme.
Why not the other options?
- ✗Saudi Arabia's Rayyanah Barnawi was the first Saudi woman in space.
- ✗Egypt has a space agency but this astronaut is not Egyptian.
- ✗Qatar does not have an astronaut programme of this kind.
Quick tip
Remember: Nora Al Matrooshi = UAE (first Arab woman astronaut trainee; selected 2021; NASA graduate 2024); first Emirati in space = Hazza Al Mansouri (2019); first Arab spacewalk = Sultan Al Neyadi (2023); UAE Hope Probe = Mars 2021.
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Space Technology & ISRO Missions — Preparation
This question tests your understanding of Space Technology & ISRO Missions, a key topic in the General Knowledge section. The detailed solution above uses a step-by-step approach to show the reasoning, and where available, a shortcut that helps you solve similar questions in under 90 seconds during the actual exam.
This topic covers India's space programme: the history of ISRO, launch vehicles such as the PSLV and GSLV, satellites and their uses, India's missions to the Moon, Mars and the Sun, and major international space missions and agencies. Questions often ask when and from where a satellite or mission was launched, what it was meant to do, and which launch vehicle carried it. For example, Aryabhata was India's first satellite (1975), and Chandrayaan-3 landed near the Moon's south pole in 2023. New missions are launched every year, so pair these facts with recent current affairs. Practise the space technology and ISRO questions below, written in the style of the general awareness sections of exams such as SSC, banking, railways, CUET GAT, MAH CET and CLAT. Each question comes with a detailed explanation that adds related facts, so every question helps you revise more than one point.